


I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You

by LyingMonsters



Series: Aleatory-verse [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Berlin Wall, Cold War, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Elvis Presley songs, Internalized Homophobia, Irresponsible Drinking, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Familial Relationships, Violence, mutual hatred
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2020-05-13 19:16:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19257505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyingMonsters/pseuds/LyingMonsters
Summary: Roderich Edelstein is a musician trapped on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. Gilbert is a potentially dangerous, damaged, undeniably magnetic man who is his only hope of seeing his fiancé, Elizabeta, again.Inspired by the Elvis Presley song of the same name.





	1. Zeitgeist

_August 12th, 1961, East Berlin_

It was an August kind of night, heady and hot and late in the Saturday, and the city of Berlin was roaring like it had been since Roderich had arrived two weeks ago.

Roderich Edelstein was lost, because these streets weren't the comfortable boulevards of Vienna where he'd grown up. There was a taste of danger here, of anticipation, soaked into the cobblestones and the smoke like everyone was waiting for the first gunshot to happen. Roderich didn't have the same enthusiasm for excitement. He wouldn't even be here if his fiancé hadn't wanted to visit her friend, and now she hadn't come back on time.

 _Next left_...he repeated to himself, squinting at the street signs. Elizabeta had given him directions to the bar she would be at, called the _Roman_ , but the route had seemed much clearer in daylight when there were no shadows looming on the walls. Roderich felt conspicuous here, knowing he looked exactly like the upper-class musician he was, and hurried along the winding roads, praying that he would see the sign and find Elizabeta and go home.

The elaborately painted sign finally loomed over him, and Roderich pushed the door open, nearly collapsing with relief.

Inside, it was so loud he could barely think, packed with people who shouted curses and pleasantries and drank all in the same breath. The bartender was having a furious argument with someone with long, blonde hair. It was stiflingly hot. Roderich froze, searching the crowd for Elizabeta, but all he saw was disbelieving eyes turned towards him. The arguments and off-key singing slowly dropped away, leaving only the errant twang of a guitar.

'What's the pretty boy doing here?' someone asked, and Roderich backed away from the voice and collided with the door. He wanted to say that he didn't want to be here, that it was all a mistake, but the words wouldn't come.

'Back off, Saxon,' a voice shouted stridently. 'He's with me.' And then there was an arm wrapped around his shoulders, guiding him further into the bar, and people drew back, eyeing not him but the man behind him. Roderich finally faced the relatively empty bar. The hand shifted to his shoulder and pressed him down in a chair. Roderich numbly sat, but before he could turn around, the man was gone.

'Roderich!'

'Elizabeta?' Roderich gratefully clasped her hands. He wanted to tell her everything about his current ordeals, but that could wait. He wanted to know who had protected him.

'I shouldn't have told you to come,' she said, sitting closer and gently stroking his hair. 'But I think I've gotten a bit carried away.'

'You still hold yourself better than anybody else here.'

Elizabeta laughed. Her skin was warm with drink. 'It's not hard. Do you want anything?'

Roderich didn't usually drink, but Elizabeta was close and gentle. 'Something light, please.'

'Nothing like that here.'

The question tugged at him again. 'Who was that man?'

Elizabeta scoffed. 'That's Beilschmidt. Don't worry about him.'

'I'm glad he stepped in.'

'Don't think too highly of him,' Elizabeta warned darkly.

'Why?'

Elizabeta leaned close. Her eyes were hazy, and she didn't seem to realize what she was saying. 'He's been hunting after _secrets_. He's got some big idea that something's going to happen to his city, and that the Russians are going to do it.' She sat back and accepted a drink offered by a pale, scarred hand over Roderich's shoulder. Her lips curled into a smile around the rim. 'I've just been telling my fiancé how you're still stuck in the past, Beilschmidt.'

'I'd lose the past if I could,' said that hissing, satisfied voice. It sent lightning racing up and down Roderich's spine. The man sat down behind him, his chair creaking, and leaned over to plug a new song into the stereo. 'This one's yours, Eliza?'

'His name is Roderich Edelstein,' Elizabeta said, and Roderich was sure he was the only one to catch the slight bite of impatience and-possessiveness, maybe.

'Pretty name. Better than yours.' The man behind him fiddled with the jukebox again and crooned along to a few lines. The music was simple but catchy from an artist Roderich faintly recognized. Nevertheless, he could almost relax with it on, save for the prickling awareness of Beilschmidt at his back.

He wanted to turn around and see who this mysterious man was, but it was easier to pretend to ignore him and accept the glass now sitting on the bar. He didn't drink. Beilschmidt stopped singing and Roderich could _hear_ his grin in the absence.

'Too shy to join us, sweetheart?'

'I don't want to get drunk,' he said tightly. 'And kindly don't call me that.'

Beilschmidt chuckled lowly. 'You're not married yet, and _then_ you'll wish you were too drunk to see your wonderful wife's face.'

It would be useless to argue with him. Roderich turned pointedly to face Elizabeta. 'Where is your friend?'

'I _am_ her friend,' Beilschmidt said. Elizabeta nodded.

'We've known each other for a while,' she said. 'However, we're more...comfortably rivals.'

It was frankly ridiculous to think of this crude drunkard associated with his fiancé in any ways, but Roderich didn't say so. Beilschmidt shifted in his chair.

'Hey, Eliza. Your friend is finally done arguing with the bartender. It's your turn to get us drinks.'

'You're paying for them,' Elizabeta said, swinging off her bar stool. She disappeared with a whirl of brown hair. Beilschmidt slipped out of his chair and stood closer. Roderich wanted to look around and fit a face to the infuriating voice, but it was easier to imagine for just a few seconds more.

'How long you been in the city, songbird?' he asked. Roderich would reprimand him for that nickname, too, but he strangely didn't mind as much.

'Two weeks.'

'Better leave soon.' He tipped back the glass. Roderich heard it hit the bar, and then there was a weight and heat so close to his back. ' _Roderich Edelstein_. You look upper class. What's your wife doing, letting you walk around this city with that big of a target on your back?'

'What do you expect me to do about how I look?' Roderich snapped.

'Oh, don't change your face, I like it just fine how it is.' Beilschmidt chuckled. Roderich had heard enough. He started to turn, but two rough, milk-white hands caught him around the waist, and he froze. He hadn't realized just how _albino_ Beilschmidt was.

'You sure you want to see me?' he asked, his voice a dark challenge, but it was his next words that made Roderich feel lightning-hot and prickling. 'You might decide you want me instead of your fiancé.'

'I can assure you, I won't,' Roderich said, trying to sound firm.

'If you're sure, then go ahead. It's not like you'll ever see me again.' The hands lifted off him, and Roderich turned.

The first thing he noticed were his eyes. Coppery red and flashing like a wolf's in the lamplight. Beilschmidt slowly, slowly inclined his head. His skin was perfectly white.

'I like you, aristocrat,' he said, smiling.

'I am _engaged_ ,' Roderich said tightly, his voice almost shaking with repressed emotion. He couldn't tell what he was feeling. Anger? Disgust at the implications? Or-God forbid, _interest_ in that sharp smile. 'And-and you cannot be like _that_.'

'Oh, haven't you heard?' Beilschmidt was suddenly close, hands gently pinning his wrists to the side of the bar. His hair was a wild white tangle and his eyes were _bright_. 'The kinds of people who run to this city?'

Roderich abruptly pulled his hands away, his heart hammering, his mouth dry. Beilschmidt's eyes still on his, the trace of a smile on his lips, but he was waiting for Roderich to react. The only problem was that Roderich didn't know how.

'I like you, and so I'll tell you something. You should get out of the city _tonight_ , aristocrat,' he said. His fingers traced the tenderness around his wrists where he'd pinned Roderich to the bar, his touch light as bird feathers.

' _Gilbert!'_

Beilschmidt's head snapped around like a soldier at arms, and he stepped back. Roderich looked as well. His fiancé was standing there, looking furious. The bar had gone quiet again.

'Gilbert,' Elizabeta said again. Gilbert-that must be his name-shuddered slightly at her tone. 'Haven't you had enough of messing other people's lives up?'

'You know I never mean to,' Gilbert said softly. But the look in his eyes had been something wanting, and Roderich's stomach was tight.

'And yet you always do.'

Gilbert stood there for a second more before he turned to look at Roderich.

'I'll stay out of your life if you don't want me,' he said nearly politely, dipped his head again in some strange imitation of fealty, and sat down at the far end of the bar. Elizabeta sat down across from Roderich and sighed. The noise of the bar slowly came back.

'You're friends?' Roderich asked hesitantly. Elizabeta nodded, still staring at the table.

'Gilbert is...I love him. I used to, at least. He's just a difficult man sometimes.' She rubbed her temples. 'He's not the kind of person who you or anybody should be associating with. He kicked his little brother out of the house last night.'

'Why?' Roderich asked, aghast.

'Who knows?' Elizabeta took a sip, brows furrowed. 'And Gilbert adores his brother. He'd give the world to him. The point is that you shouldn't trust his promises. You wouldn't be the first heart he's broken, and certainly not the last.'

'I-I wouldn't be _heartbroken_ ,' Roderich said, trying to sound more scandalized than he felt. Elizabeta raised an eyebrow.

'Are you sure? He got me that way, too.' Elizabeta looked faintly amused and sad as she stood up. 'What do you want to do? We leave tomorrow.'

Gilbert's warning echoed in Roderich's mind, but out of spite, he ignored it. 'I'd like to go back to the flat and practice.'

'I'm going to grab one final drink from the West, then. I'll be back in an hour.' She kissed his temple, and Roderich smiled.

This was better-with Elizabeta's gentle hand in his as they walked out, the cool night air, and the assurance that the memory of Gilbert Beilschmidt would be gone by morning.

Roderich looked back-he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have-and caught Gilbert's eyes on his. The man was an enigma, a wrench in the gears of Roderich's life. He shouldn't bother him as much as he did.

Even when Roderich finally found his way home and tried to play something to take his mind off those coppery eyes, the first thing that came to mind was the tune to the song Gilbert had sang. If he could only get that crooning, raspy voice out of his head-!

It was ridiculous. Berlin had been the city for people who were _like that_ for a while, but Roderich did not want any part of it. He belonged to polished wood concert halls and softer music and lovely, gentle Elizabeta, who kept him grounded.

Satisfied, or at least comforted, Roderich went to bed and dreamed of the acrid smoke and alcohol of the bar, of Gilbert's heavy presence at his back, of the wiry length of his body and the satisfaction in his smile.

 _You should get out of the city tonight, aristocrat_ , Gilbert hissed in his dream. His touch was both burning and cold, setting lightning racing through every vein. Roderich was frozen, unable to speak. Gilbert grinned up at him, mouth close to the engagement ring on his finger. He pressed a dry kiss against it-fealty.

_Haven't you heard the kinds of people who run to this city?_

Roderich woke up in a cold sweat, blinking in the grey early morning sunlight. Berlin was roaring outside his window, a discontented, snarling roar like the people would riot. Cold fear tumbled into his stomach, and Roderich fumbled for his glasses and shoved them on, throwing open the curtains.

There were guards in the square, with pressed uniforms and guns. The people held back-shouting and writhing like an animal about to bite itself to pieces, but they stayed back. It didn't make sense until Roderich saw the wall.

As far as he could see, stretching along the street, was a barbed wire fence guarded by soldiers. It was too soon for soldiers, too soon for another war. Everyone knew the West side, the American side, hadn't liked the East, but even the Americans weren't foolish enough to start another war.

Unless-Roderich felt cold, cold, and lightheaded as if he was about to fall. Unless those weren't American soldiers. Unless they were East soldiers with their ragged uniforms, guns turned against their own.

People watched silently from the other side. Children clutching pillows with blue feet, parents staring. Somebody laughed hysterically. Someone in the square below sang a broken line from a crooning song, and someone on the other side finished. Lovers broken apart.

Elizabeta. Roderich turned and shouted into the echoing flat, chest squeezing in, desperately hoping, hoping that she would be here. If Elizabeta was here, everything would be better.

There was no answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wise men say
> 
> Only fools rush in
> 
> -I Can't Help Falling In Love With You
> 
> :: Oiled wood under gallery lights


	2. Chapter Two

The world was spinning slowly around him. Roderich could faintly feel the edges of the bathroom sink digging into his palms. It was the silence he could not stand, the silence that echoed between his shouts, weighing down on his heart. Elizabeta was gone, in the West. Why had he let her go without him? Why hadn't she come back yet?

 _You should get out of the city tonight_.

Roderich felt suddenly cold. Gilbert Beilschmidt had somehow known about this, and out of some strange loyalty to Elizabeta, had warned him.

Roderich sunk down against the tiled wall of the bathroom. Everything had turned into a dull, pounding roar in his temples. Elizabeta and the barbed wire fence and Gilbert was all too much. He had to get back to Elizabeta, and if she was unable to come to him, he would cross the barbed wire to find her.

Collecting himself, Roderich began to look for his identification papers. All he would have to do would be to find the crossing point, and then Elizabeta would be there and they could return to Vienna. The guards would let him through once they found out that he wasn't even from here. This petty show between the Americans and Soviets would not affect him.

Reassured, Roderich set off. They'd visited the Brandenburg Gate before, and surely there would be some sort of official there that could sort out the finer points after war powers clashed again.

0o0o0o

The Brandenburg Gate bristled with East guards. Across the barbed wire, American soldiers paced among the mob, staring at the huddled people across from them. They kept back from the guns. Someone burst out of the crowd, a young man who stared, paralyzed in shock as one of the East soldiers turned their gun on him. One of the soldiers rushed forward and dragged him back. The message was clear to everyone. _They will shoot_.

Roderich strode forward, forcing his step not to falter. All eyes turned to him, piercing down, trying to figure out what he could be doing, walking up to the Wall like he was on a stroll. The air was silent save for a birdcall and a single, loud laugh.

Roderich's heart was loud in his ears, but he could not back down. He was safe. The Soviets wouldn't dare really shoot, so long as the Americans watched from across the square. All he needed to do was find someone high-ranking and tell them the situation. He would not back down so long as there was a chance of seeing Elizabeta again.

A man leaned against the closest building. His grey uniform was clean and pristine and neatly pressed with stars on the shoulders, but his gun was slung over his back. Cigarette smoke wafted from under his helmet as he watched the guards. With a surge of relief, Roderich started towards him.

Ten feet away, the man stilled and looked up, and Roderich froze. He knew those wolflike copper eyes and that pale skin. A bloody gash arched over his right eye.

'Gilbert?' he asked in astonishment, before correcting himself. 'Officer Beilschmidt? I need to get across to the West. I have papers.'

Gilbert's cigarette was burning down to his fingers, but he made no move to put it out. His eyes were wide.

'Get away from me,' he hissed. Roderich frowned. Did he not understand how important this was?

'I need to-'

'Pretty boy's back,' someone behind him growled, and Roderich flinched away from the heavy hand that landed on his shoulder. At the same moment, Gilbert stood up, his gun in his hands, looking deadly and wild.

'Hands off, Private.'

'What's he going to do about it? I heard he wanted to get across into the West. Maybe I'd be able to turn a blind eye for a bit. For a price.'

Roderich wanted to shove the man away, but forced himself calm and turned to face the soldiers. This could be a chance.

'I have money.'

'We want a bit more than that,' the man leered. Roderich opened his mouth to retort before he realized, and his stomach turned. These men couldn't really be saying- _no, he wouldn't_ -

Gilbert calmly stepped between them, raised his gun, and flicked off the safety. Every movement was almost elegant. The two soldiers froze.

'Hands _off_ ,' Gilbert said lightly. 'Not surprised you're trying that, seeing as you couldn't bribe any girl enough to get in your bed, but I'm having a conversation here.'

'The Red Army's already had its fill of whichever girl it wanted in your city, Beilschmidt,' one of them spat. 'Maybe that's where your mother got you, because you sure don't look like your good little brother. Or maybe it's him that's the son of one of us? It's only been sixteen years, after all-'

The soldier's next words were choked off as Gilbert rammed the muzzle of his gun into his throat. With his blood and his bared teeth, he looked like some avenging angel.

'I said, I'm having a conversation,' Gilbert said again. Roderich could see the faint twitch of his mouth, the labour of his breathing. He'd been so _close_ to all that coiled power yesterday that he could recognize all the tensions.

The soldiers backed away.

'You should be careful, Beilschmidt,' the first one warned, rubbing his neck.

'Back to your posts,' he said, before turning his back. The two stalked away.

Gilbert's coppery eyes held him in place. He slowly put the safety back on. Every movement held a released tension.

'My little brother is twenty,' he said casually, and his fingers dug hard into the grooves of his gun before he released. 'Not sixteen.'

Roderich felt sick with fear and relief. The world was swaying. Only Gilbert stayed steady. He just nodded.

'What happened to your eye?' he asked numbly. _Why are you wearing their uniform? Why did you know this was going to happen?_

Gilbert absentmindedly touched it. The blood spotted his fingers vibrantly. 'Bar fight. What were you saying?'

'I...need to get across.'

'Can't do it, sweetheart,' Gilbert said. 'Where's your wife?'

'Elizabeta is over there. I need to get to her. I have-have all the papers. I don't live here.'

'Do you think it matters to them?' Gilbert slung his gun back across his shoulders. 'We're all stuck here at the whim of the Soviets. Even after all those years of war with millions of people dead, we still act like we want to wipe our own existence off the face of the earth. Roderich Edelstein, do you really think humanity can stop tearing each other apart long enough to realize that?' He pulled out a new cigarette and lit it. 'You're in the East now. You live fast or not at all.'

'Which are you doing?'

Gilbert's mouth curled into a smile around the ember. 'Neither. I'm a dead man walking.'

The papers felt heavy in his pocket. Gilbert was watching, body loose but alert, cocking his head like the crows that perched nearby.

'You shouldn't have come to talk to me,' he whispered. 'Not while I'm in uniform. Don't come by again.'

'Wait! Wait, you can't just-if you can't help me get across, who can?'

'Nobody, sweetheart.' Gilbert shrugged, watching the West crowd again. 'The Berlin Wall is up. Nobody can leave.'

'But I need Elizabeta,' he said, knowing his voice sounded small. Gilbert's eyes locked on his again, measuring.

'We all think we need things. If you try to cross, they'll shoot you. If you keep strutting around like some high-class noble, you'll end up dead anyways. I can't help you get into the West. But Eliza's my friend, and I'm the only hope you have, so if you meet me in the Roman tonight, I'll help you survive here.' He straightened, gazing out at the rest of the guards. 'Now get out and never approach the Wall again. I don't want to see you dead.'

Roderich held his tongue. If Gilbert Beilschmidt was his only hope, he'd fallen far from concert halls and expert sonatas.

0o0o0o

Gilbert hadn't given him a time, so Roderich arrived early and sat in the corner. There was no strum of a guitar this time, and the jukebox was off. Roderich had liked the music. It was simple, but it had reminded him of better days, back in Vienna. He closed his eyes and imagined it, letting the simple chords take him somewhere far away. Maybe when he opened his eyes, the morning would have all been a bad dream, and Gilbert only a figment of his imagination.

'What are you dreaming about, princess?'

Roderich's eyes snapped open. Gilbert grinned up over his glass. He'd bandaged his cut. 'Don't tell me you're one of those idealists. It'll be hard enough to take care of you as is.'

'Why are you a Wall guard?' Roderich asked bluntly. Gilbert raised an eyebrow, fire flaring dangerously in his eyes. Despite himself, Roderich looked away first.

'Don't tell people that. They'll hate you more if they know you're consorting with my sort. I would.'

'Then why are you?' Roderich pressed. Gilbert didn't say anything for a long moment.

'I became a soldier for their army because I had to,' he said measuredly. 'You've never had to worry about anyone but yourself, but I had a little brother. If joining the Red Army meant he stayed safe and fed, I would do it.'

Heavy, hot shame rose in his chest. Berlin was the city of people like Gilbert, who was so much raw power and doing what they had to in order to survive.

'I'm sorry,' he said. Gilbert just shook his head.

'It's what I had to do.' A half-smile was still flickering around his mouth. 'Why are _you_ here?' he asked.

'What?'

'A musician like you. Shouldn't you have run to the far side of the city?' His eyes flashed in the lamplight and his voice dropped. 'I told you to leave. Why didn't you?'

'Why should I have believed you?' Roderich retorted. 'I don't belong here. I was intending to leave today, but...Elizabeta.'

'Did she believe me?' Gilbert asked. Roderich noticed how he gripped the glass and his eyes turned bright. 'She's safe in the West and not-not caught by anyone?'

'She's safe.'

Gilbert took a long, shuddering breath. 'Thank God.'

Rage suddenly burst in his chest, and Roderich stood up. 'You knew! And you let this happen to everyone?'

'What do you think I tried to do?' Gilbert snarled, standing up across from him. 'You didn't believe me. Elizabeta and Francis are only in the West by accident. Antonio hates me now, and he's still here. My brother...' His jaw trembled. 'He's safe, that's all that matters. I told everyone and I saved _three_ people, Roderich. At least I fucking _tried_.'

They stand there, glaring each other down before Roderich abruptly sits down.

'I don't want you to help me,' he said, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice. Gilbert laughed.

'Too late, sweetheart. I talked some bullshit about keeping out of your life if you didn't want me, but it's too late. I might hate you, but your fiancé's my friend. I'm keeping you safe for her.' He slid a scrap of paper with a few lines of scribbling writing across the table. 'Here. These people don't like the Soviets. If you go to them, they might be able to help. I can't go, because they hate me now.'

'Why?'

'Because I'm a Wall guard,' Gilbert said. 'Don't tell them you know me. And the address below that is my place. It's only for emergencies.'

'What qualifies as an emergency?'

'You're being actively targeted by the Stasi, say, or the Americans bring in tanks and start another war,' Gilbert said, sounding abnormally cheerful. 'Tell me if it's the latter. I still have Toni's old shitty camera, and I'll get pictures.'

'You act like this is all a joke,' Roderich said. He knew his voice trembled. Gilbert smiled.

'Look at us, sweetheart. You're a musician from the better side and I'm guarding the Wall. The only thing fate has for us is a tragedy.' He finished his drink and stood up, offering his hand in mock chivalry. 'Ready to go, princess?'

Frustrated, Roderich stood up, ignoring his hand. Gilbert laughed and followed him out.

The cold air was better on his face, and Roderich lingered a moment. Gilbert touched his shoulder.

'Listen to me. I know you hate this, but you're smart enough to realize that I'm a better chance of staying alive. How about we make a deal? You keep your nose out of trouble and you won't have to see me ever again.'

'Deal,' Roderich said stiffly. Gilbert laughed.

'You're a long way from home, aren't you? Where's your nest?'

'Vienna.'

'Thought so.' Gilbert whistled as they walked. Roderich lost himself in the strangely melodic sound for a moment.

He wanted to tell Gilbert to leave, but there was safety in standing next to this pale soldier tonight. They would reach his flat and part ways, never to meet again.

The thought gave him pause, though he wasn't sure why. Gilbert cut a dramatic figure in the moonlight, brightening his skin silver. He glanced over, his eyes flashing in the moonlight as his song faded.

'You're a musician, right?' he asked. Roderich nodded again. Gilbert paused and began to sing, softly, with a voice that was rough and breaking around the edges, but lovely. It was half wartime croon and half birdcall, it seemed, notes swooping up into the moonlight like nightjars.

Roderich said nothing until he was finished, and they stood outside his flat. Gilbert stayed staring up at the sky, face turned towards the West with a longing expression.

'Imagine how we might have met without the Wall,' he said. 'You'd have still hated me.'

'Elizabeta would still be here.'

'We can only dream.'

The haunting strains of the song still drifted through Roderich's mind. 'What was that you were singing? It was rather...beautiful.'

'I learned it from my mother. We used to sing it to my baby brother. Back when we were younger. During the war.' Gilbert shrugged, every movement loose. 'He's older now, and an officer. I haven't sung to anyone for years.'

'You said he was in the West?'

Gilbert leaned back against the wall, shoulders curling over. 'Yeah.' His tone made it obvious that he wouldn't talk, and even subdued, Gilbert Beilschmidt was a hurricane force.

Gilbert turned and touched him, calloused fingertips at his cheek. Roderich's breath caught, and he could hear his heart.

'You know, they say the only things that survive in this city are art and history.' He looked him over, red eyes faintly amused and gleaming. Roderich knew what he looked like, clutching his fine coat, clothes far too obviously rich in this dingy backstreet. Faced with this ghost of the city of wartime, scarred and pale and dangerous, he was vulnerable-and yet here was his knight's favour in Roderich's hand.

Gilbert gave him one more gift-a smile. Roderich shivered in something not quite fear.

'We'll have a good time.'


	3. Chapter Three

Roderich hadn't wanted to go to the address Gilbert had given him. Associating with anyone who antagonized the Stasi was a bad decision if he wanted to see Elizabeta again, but he couldn't stay locked in his flat waiting for whatever new terror the East could dream up. He had to act.

So he stood in front of a ramshackle hole-in-the-wall building that looked nearly abandoned, clutching at a heavy coat he'd found in the closet to try to disguise his appearance. He lingered at the rusted door for a long moment, torn on what to do. Gilbert was a Wall guard. He was on the side of the Stasi, technically, but he'd helped him before. Hopefully this wasn't a trap, but even if it was, the waiting was driving him mad. With an effort, Roderich pushed open the door.

The small, dirty place was nearly deserted. The few people left snapped to attention when he entered. One of them, a broad-shouldered, wild-haired man, stood up when he entered, his face twisted into a snarl.

'I told you not to show your face here again, Beilschmidt, and this time Antonio isn't here to stop me from gouging your fucking-' He stopped, dead silent, the bottle in his hand dropping to his side. Roderich stared at him, frozen. The man barked a laugh. 'False alarm. Just some aristocrat trapped on the wrong side of town.'

Did the man mean _his_ Beilschmidt? Roderich didn't want to ask. He had a sinking feeling about this entire endeavour.

'I was told you'd-you'd help. That you're against the Stasi.' Roderich tried not to flinch at his own words, but he couldn't help glancing around, wondering if there were cameras or microphones. The man sat back down and his bruised face lifted into a smile.

'You heard right. I'd ask if you were a spy, but-and no offense about it-I'd wager a guess you aren't.' He shoved a pile of newspapers he'd been studying away and motioned to the battered chair beside him. 'Come on, sit down. My name is-well, you can call me Kalmar. It's a code name, so if you're caught and interrogated, you don't know who I am. So I won't ask your name, either.'

Roderich did flinch at that, but Kalmar didn't notice. He sat cautiously. The makeshift bar was sticky with spilled alcohol and smelled of cheap vodka and the coppery tone of blood. He positioned himself as far away from it as possible.

'Don't worry about getting listened in on,' Kalmar said jovially, passing him a glass of vodka. Roderich didn't touch it. 'The only leak we had was that son of a bitch Gilbert, and as you heard, I promised him that if he showed his face here again I'd finish tearing out that spying eye of his.' He gestured in a rather cheerful way despite the morbidity, but cold fear had rushed through Roderich's veins. At least, he thought half-hysterically, he knew where that gash had come from now.

'Oh?' he asked, careful to keep his voice casual and unaffected. Kalmar finished his drink, and seeing that the second he'd poured was untouched, took a gulp.

'Worst part was that he was a _brilliant_ man. He led us, unofficially, y'know? He was always so passionate about these kinds of things. He considered this city his, and wasn't gonna let anyone mess with it. Prideful bastard.' He finished the glass and reached for another bottle behind the counter. 'But it turned out he was one of the Stasi rats, turning people from here in to get information about the Wall. Mark my words, Gilbert cares more about this soil than any living human. He's a soldier. He lives and breathes for the country.'

Roderich's hands balled into fists, and he struggled to relax even though his pulse hammered. Gilbert was more complicated than he'd realized, and this knowledge that he'd worked for the Stasi should leave Roderich hating him. But the man he'd seen last night, singing quiet notes to the air, had been undeniably magnetic. There was no question about hating the coarse, arrogant, immoral Gilbert Beilschmidt. The problem was that Roderich had felt _other_ things about him as well.

He resolutely ignored the fluttering memory.

'When did you find out?'

'Just two nights ago.' Kalmar leaned back, raising his eyes to the ceiling, apparently lost in thought. 'A month ago, he just vanished. I thought he was dead. It would be better if he was dead. But he came back to warn us of what was happening, of course.' His mouth pulled into a snarl again.

'Why?' he breathed. If he'd only come back the day the Wall was raised, that meeting in the Roman had been with a man people thought were dead.

'I don't know what goes on in his head. Nobody does. He's not _built_ for this time, I feel.'

'I know,' Roderich said. He did. Gilbert was a ghost lingering from all this city's tangled history.

Kalmar gave him a strange look.

'And how'd you know that? And who told you about us, anyways?'

Roderich could have cursed. Gilbert had _specifically_ told him not to mention him, and now he knew why. He scrambled for something to say.

'My fiancé!' he blurted. 'Elizabeta. She knew this place. She said...said a friend told her about it, someone she was drinking with yesterday who I saw in passing. Gilbert is albino, isn't he?' He braced himself, on tenterhooks for judgment, ready for his flimsy story to collapse.

Kalmar's eyes lit.

'Elizabeta? Hungarian woman, right? Long brown hair, good at arm wrestling, can outdrink nearly anyone? She came in with Gilbert once, a long time back. Wonderful woman.'

Roderich could have collapsed with relief. 'Yes, that's her.'

'You're lucky to be together. Why didn't she come with you? I'd have loved to see her again.'

'She's in the West.'

Kalmar blanched. 'Oh, hell. I'm sorry.'

Roderich wasn't in the mood to think about it. 'It's...how it is now.'

'And we keep living.' Kalmar raised his bottle in mock toast before settling in again. 'You met Gilbert yesterday, all right,' he added. 'There's no mistaking him. He looks like an angel, but he's nothing holy. The only god he worships is power.' He snorted. 'Unless you count his coming back from the dead, Gilbert Beilschmidt is no saint.'

The memory came back to him about Elizabeta calling Gilbert a _heartbreaker_ , and last night how angelic he'd looked, and how deadly. Gilbert was more an avenging angel, some winged creature defending this heart of buildings that he'd claimed as a nest.

Kalmar was peering curiously at him.

'Are you okay?'

Roderich fumbled for something and grabbed a cheap bottle of vodka. He drank, and the burn in his cheeks crawled down his throat, prickling out to his fingers. It felt like Gilbert's hands on his.

'It was nothing,' he said. It had to be nothing, and he forced himself back on topic. 'Elizabeta told me that Gilbert had...thrown his brother out. Why?'

'You know how I said Gilbert loves this city more than any living thing? The only exception is his brother. Ludwig was his name, good man, built like a tank, loved the order of the police force and hero-worshipped his brother. After Gilbert got picked up by his Stasi friends, he thought he'd died, too. Must have been a shock when his brother came back.' Kalmar sighed heavily. 'He's in the West now. I miss him. Good kid. A lot of fun after he loosened up with a few drinks.'

They sat and drank. Kalmar had to have been on his third bottle by this point and showed no sign of stopping.

'What did you come here for?' he questioned. 'I'd guess you're not joining.'

'No.'

'That's good. You're smart enough to realize that if the Stasi catch anyone here, they'll have us hanged out in front of the Wall.' Kalmar was still remarkably cheerful about it all.

'I need to get across the Wall to Elizabeta.'

'Can't do it. I may be a madman, but I know what's possible. Fucking up some Red Army weapon trucks, painting rebellious messages, fighting their guards, making it a bit harder to control this place, that's possible. Smuggling you across that death zone they've set up, with guards and guns and rabid dogs? Or breaking you out of their prisons once they've forced every scrap of information on any person you've ever loved out of you?' He laughed, but his eyes were blank and dull with pain. 'No. I won't. I'll watch out for you. I'll make sure the East is a little more comfortable, because believe me, you'll be here for a long time. But I won't risk everything for something impossible.' He looked down at Roderich's ring. 'Some advice? Take that off. It'll only bring trouble here.'

Roderich slowly slid it off and placed it in his pocket. The rejection stung. He'd expected the answer, but the reality was sinking in now that he could never see Elizabeta again.

He pushed it away. He was not going to give up. If these people couldn't help, someone else could. He'd get Gilbert to help somehow, because if anyone could do something mad and impossible, it was him. He would see Elizabeta again.

'Good man,' Kalmar said softly. 'I know it's hard. It's going to be hard. But it's better to keep living for a chance of the Wall coming down one day than get yourself shot today. We all have to have hope.' He clapped a hand on Roderich's shoulder. 'Drink up.'

For once, it seemed reasonable advice, and all was quiet in the bar.

When the bottle was finished and his chest was burning, Roderich wasn't feeling better. The alcohol just twisted all his distinct, razor-sharp pain into a throbbing ache behind his heart. More would numb the pain into something manageable, he thought blurrily, reaching for another. Kalmar's hand was over his before he could grab it, and he blinked slowly in confusion.

'You shouldn't drink too much. Gotta work your way up like me,' he said. He gently nudged Roderich out of his seat. 'Go home and tomorrow, keep your head down and concentrate on hope. Where do you live? I'll make sure we don't cause too much noise around the area.'

Roderich told him, and Kalmar nodded. He tried to get up and the world swayed, so the man propped him up and led him to a niche near the door, out of sight, and brought him some coffee and cold water to sober up. As Roderich tried to make the world swim back into focus, he finished another bottle, his words slurring.

'I could have killed him, you know.' Kalmar's eyes were drooping and glazed with drink. 'I had him right _there_ , and I could have _killed him_.' He slammed his fist against the wall and Roderich jumped. 'Should have killed him. But Antonio-always fucking sentimental, he was-said to let him go. Guess I've honoured that, because then he ran off to try to pull down the Wall and I haven't heard from him. He's probably dead. Soon it'll just be me here, and then I'll find and kill that bastard.'

Roderich didn't say anything. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, all his confusing thoughts even he couldn't make sense of about how Gilbert had sang to him would spill out. He took careful sips of the water and coffee, already feeling slimy-sick about how drunk he was and how helpless everything could be. Once the world only trembled occasionally, he stood up. Kalmar blinked at him.

'Listen. I hope you see her again, really. But don't rest your whole life on that.' He touched Roderich's arm, eyes surprisingly sad. 'You shouldn't come back here. I'll watch out for you, aristocrat, but East Berlin is dangerous enough without being hunted.'

'Do you have any advice?' Roderich asked, his voice sounding alien. Kalmar tilted his head.

'Always say goodbye. Because you never know if it's the last time. Not anymore.'

Roderich just nodded, wavering.

‘Goodbye,’ he said, and left before his swirling thoughts could overwhelm him.

0o0o0o

Roderich was still drunk when he woke up. He groaned, his head pounding, the world shimmering. The sky was ambiguously light, neither early nor late. His chest pinched from where his ring had dug through from his pocket.

He rolled over and sat up with an effort to pull out the ring. It was simple, but well-formed and immaculate. He'd loved it because of what it meant, him and Elizabeta. He remembered their unofficial vows and promises to each other. Now, he supposed bitterly, none of that mattered.

He crossed to his drawers and lingered before pressing the cool metal to his lips.

'I'll see you again,' he promised, yearning for Elizabeta's warmth, so far away in the West. Then he carefully stowed the ring underneath a pile of shirts.

Ten minutes later he was wandering the streets again, still wrapped in the rough coat. It made him look a bit more like the ragged construction workers, but he was still acutely aware of their differences. At this hour, though, nobody was around to see him. The streets here were quiet and waiting, theatres to only the moonlight. Roderich walked aimlessly, trying to escape from the buzzing pressure of fear that had settled into him. Everything had changed so suddenly, but the people here seemed to have taken it in stride. Was it only him still stumbling ten steps behind?

'Hey, aristocrat, what did I say about you dreaming?'

Roderich shocked awake and whirled to face none other than Gilbert, sitting on a stone pier overlooking the river. The ember of a cigarette illuminated his crooked smile.

'I thought you didn't want to see me again,' he greeted. 'To what do I owe the privilege of your company, princess?'

'I don't want to see you,' Roderich said stiffly. 'I was just going for a walk.'

'Late at night, alone? This isn't your gated community in Vienna, sweetheart.' He ashed the cigarette into the river. 'You're drunk, too. It's lucky I'm the only person who found you. Sit down.'

'I'm not drunk. Or at least I don't make a habit of it,' Roderich snapped, sitting down as far away on the pier as he could.

'You shouldn't talk about what you don't understand,' Gilbert said lightly.

'I understand plenty well. You're a Stasi spy,' Roderich spat, furious, his emotions all rising up. 'You sold people to them willingly because you care more for this city than the lives you ruined. I'm not surprised you've turned to drinking. I'd be just as disgusted in myself if I was a turncoat.'

Gilbert didn't say anything for a moment. Roderich felt a sense of vindictive pleasure.

'You went to the resistance?' he finally asked, face still turned away.

'Yes, I did. They told me everything.'

'Mathias did? Well, now you know.' Gilbert took a drink from a flask at his hip and looked over, coppery eyes fierce and bright and mouth pulling into a mocking smile. 'I never said I was one of the good people. In fact, you should have expected it. I'm a Wall guard.'

Roderich felt off-balance. He'd expected Gilbert to try to deny it or convince him it was wrong, but he hadn't. 'So you-you truly are…?'

'I sold people out. I let everyone think I was dead. For the greater good, and all. I thought I could save enough people to fix it, but I couldn't. We all got burned in the end. The Stasi thought I was too unpredictable and sent me to guard duty and the resistance-well, I'm sure you heard. Any more questions?'

'Why?' Roderich asked. The question was just simple, innocent curiosity, but Gilbert stilled.

'For my baby brother,' he said, voice strangely intense. 'I can't not save him. I had to come back and tell him to get out. So I did, his big brother back from the dead.' His face twisted in mock amusement. 'Ludwig takes after me. Stubborn as they come. You'll hear that I argued with him, that I threw him out, that I told him to get out of the house and never return.' His shoulder lifted, his expression slid into something both defiant and breaking. 'It's all true. It was the only way he would listen.'

'What did you argue about?'

Gilbert's gaze slid over to his for a long pause. Then he spoke, softly.

'If you tell anyone, I will turn you in. It will ruin him, and the Wall doesn't stop gossip from passing.'

'I won't tell,' Roderich promised. Gilbert's teeth flashed, and he flicked his cigarette ash out.

'He's a homosexual.'

The word shuddered through him like fire and Roderich went hot and cold at once. 'What?'

'He prefers men. Don't tell me you've never heard of it before, princess. Not even you're that naive.'

'I'm perfectly aware of what it means. How do you know that?' Roderich demanded. His heart was thumping against his rib cage.

'I confronted him. And I had my suspicions for a long time.' Gilbert exhaled a line of smoke. 'But I don't think he had come to terms with it himself. Still, when I asked him if he was, he said yes. And so I told him to get into the West and never come back.'

Roderich had nothing to say. He felt faintly sick about the whole thing.

'It was the worst-the absolute fucking worst-thing I could have said to him. But he's perfect in every other way and I couldn't think. I had to make him leave.' Gilbert hissed through his teeth and violently threw his cigarette into the water before slamming his palms against the stone. 'Fuck!'

Gilbert stilled, looking calmer for a moment before rounding on Roderich, teeth bared, making him look animalistic, a cornered beast.

'Go on,' he challenged. 'Tell me you hate me. Tell me I'm terrible. I'm a turncoat, I'm a bad brother, I'm a traitor.'

Roderich didn't. He should, but all his tangled thoughts now hovered against his tongue against, threatening to be spoken, to ask what Gilbert really felt about those kinds of people. Gilbert's expression slid into a sardonic smile.

'You know it's true. I know it's true.' He suddenly grabbed his collar, stiff pressure against his throat, but not choking. 'But do you know why I did it? Because he'd have died if he had stayed. You are going to die here, pretty aristocrat. You aren't built for war. This city is going to kill you. That's why I told you to get out.'

'Are you going to argue with me about being such a way?' Roderich found himself asking. Gilbert laughed roughly and let him go.

'No.' He leaned back and closed his eyes. 'I shouldn't have thrown away that cigarette.'

'Do you-do you hate that he's like that?' Roderich asked quietly, staring out at the water. Gilbert didn't answer, just moved closer. He could feel the heat of his body.

'If I answer that, are you going to turn me in?' he asked.

'No.'

'No use informing on a dead man. I don't hate it.' Gilbert shifted closer again, their sides pressing together. Roderich could see his pale form out of the corner of his eye, and just like that night in the bar, a moon-white hand rested against his side to steady him. Gilbert turned, resting his head on his shoulder, and Roderich's pulse jumped. His breath tickled his neck. 'Are you going to turn me in if I tell you why?'

Roderich turned his head to face him, slowly, and Gilbert's scarlet eyes pierced into him. Their breaths wisped up in the cooler night air. He dimly felt his own hand fisting in that hated Soviet uniform, pulling him in.

'No.'

'That's why you aren't going to survive. This answer could kill me, and you aren't taking the opportunity even after you know who I am.' He laughed, and they were close, close enough to see the tension of pain in his jaw from where Kalmar had tried to gouge out his eye, the flutter of his pale lashes, and the slow curve of his smile. 'How should I put it? Ludwig takes after me.'

'Oh,' was the only thing Roderich could say. Some great panic was rising up inside of him, a humming excitement he couldn't fully understand spreading throughout every part of him.

Gilbert tilted his head, that damned little smile still on his face, and Roderich felt a tug in his chest towards it, right where the heat of hatred came from but dizzyingly different. 'Are you surprised?'

'No.'

'Then maybe I'm doing something right.' Gilbert leaned closer, enough to smell gunpowder and the soap he used. 'What about you, sweetheart?'

'I…' Oh, God, he was too close and Roderich should shove him away but he looked beautiful in moonlight and he was everything that made Roderich feel alight in a way Elizabeta didn't, and his hands were calloused and moving gently over his, but-oh, Elizabeta-

He grabbed his shoulder and looked him in the eye, heart in his throat.

'I'm engaged,' he whispered. He struggled to muster up some of the hatred for him that was usually so close at hand. 'And you are a traitor.'

Something changed in those red eyes, and Gilbert abruptly pulled away.

'You aren't wearing your ring,' he said, not meeting his eye.

'It attracted too much attention.' Roderich felt cold without his hands. Something inside of him was aching.

'You're right,' Gilbert said. He looked up, eyes carefully neutral. 'I'm still going to help you. I'm going to get you back to your wife somehow.'

'Gilbert-' Roderich started, suddenly terrified he would never see him again.

'Just don't get yourself killed before then, princess,' Gilbert said with a half-smile, turned, and left Roderich with all his unspoken words about Gilbert's angelic beauty and the ache in his chest only intensified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :: Windows that let in late sunlight and make the room glow


	4. Chapter Four

In the semi-darkness, the grey that everything was now, the soldier's smiles gleamed. Gilbert itched to go for his gun, to feel the roar of hot metal under his palms and shove the barrel into the colonel's mouth and pull the trigger until the clip was empty and the world was safe.

It would take a lot more than his handful of bullets to make the world something where pretty aristocrats weren't trapped against cruel walls, where their haunted eyes might soften and where they might take off their wedding rings for different reasons.

The thought made him feel twisted-up and too hot inside, wanting to tear a whole regime to shreds with his bare hands and his bared teeth. Beautiful, naive, fiery and entrancingly vulnerable Roderich Edelstein didn't deserve to be stuck in this ragged grey place with the guards and the Red Army officers, and if Gilbert had any honour left, he swore on it that he'd get him away from this hell. Back to his safe life, with his wife and his music and only the memory of the barbed wire.

'What are you waiting for, Beilschmidt?' The gun jabbed against his spine, and Gilbert held down his anger and stepped into the Wall observation post. The door clanged shut with finality behind him.

His grip uncurled from the gun and he let out a ragged breath. He couldn't fight, even if it was the right thing to do. He had to get Roderich to the West, no matter how much he hurt for it.

He tasted copper and absentmindedly licked where he'd dug his teeth through his lip. He'd made his choices, all his stupid, arrogant wrong choices, and the least he could do was try to do the right thing now.

 _Roderich and his maddening purple eyes and the soft curve of his cheek and his mouth and the flush in his face when he was angry and how he'd looked for a moment on the pier with the moonlight, open and destroyed and hauntingly beautiful_ -

Gilbert was going to do another stupid thing if he kept seeing him. Elizabeta had called him a heartbreaker, but he would not ruin a safe life, he would not ruin him. There would be a better life for Roderich, away from him. The words tasted bitter, like gunpowder.

Across the Wall, the West side seethed in confusion- in the East, with hopeless rage. Gilbert wrapped his hands with the protruding knuckles and the gunpowder burns around the bars that crossed the window and wondered if somewhere his brother was thinking of him and all his betrayals.

The scholars argued over what was worse, to be forgotten or to be remembered in hate. Gilbert knew that he'd always rather be remembered. Even if his brother cursed his name, at least he said it. It would be a thousand times worse to fade into nothing in his head.

He couldn't bear to think of Roderich forgetting him. Maybe- Gilbert groaned and slumped over on the cold metal table that filled most of his cell- maybe that was why he couldn't keep his fucking scarred-up hands off him, couldn't stop ruining his life. Gilbert wanted to push him, push him until all that confused energy broke and Roderich shoved him right back. He wanted Roderich to _know_ him, to remember him, to be just as fascinated and infuriated and distracted. God, Gilbert wanted to kiss him just to see what he'd look like afterwards.

Gilbert wanted to kiss him, to find out what he tasted like.

A gunshot echoed outside. He stood up and shoved the table over with a roar. It made a horrific metallic screech that made his whole head hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain radiating around his dark chest.

The door was thrown open, and one of the guards- the guards for the guards who couldn't be trusted, he supposed with a snarling amusement- scrambled to grab his gun, eyes wide. This time, Gilbert had his rifle out and leveled at his throat before he could speak.

'Get me a drink,' he growled. 'None of your shitty vodka, God damn you, bring me a beer.'

The younger one, whose uniform was slanted and flopping around his shoulders, stammered a yes and raced off. Gilbert didn't care what might happen next. He needed to stop thinking of purple eyes and aristocrats that weren't his to ruin.

By the time his shift was done, he couldn't walk straight. He staggered away from the Wall with his head spinning and when the world started going black around the edges, he collapsed into a shop.

''M not a Soviet,' Gilbert heard himself say, tugging at his own jacket. The man leaning over him had curious pale eyes, a shade of lavender that reminded him of mountains, nothing like deep violet.

'They enlisted you?' His voice was also strange, high and flat like a child's. Gilbert pried his eyes open and looked him over. The man was really a boy, no more than sixteen. He grimaced at the signs of hunger in his sharp cheekbones and prominent knuckles like his own.

'Have you heard it's not polite to talk?' Gilbert tried to laugh, but it came out distorted through the alcohol. 'You don't want to hear.'

The boy had searching eyes, and Gilbert didn't want to see what might be reflected there. After a long time, the boy moved away, arranging something.

'You're lucky my brother isn't here,' he said in a low tone. 'He doesn't take as kindly to guards.'

'Where is he?'

'Off again.' His shoulders hunched, and his voice barely caught. 'Like always.'

Gilbert was curious, and the shop was quiet enough for his head to stop throbbing as much. 'Where?'

'I wouldn't tell a guard anything,' he spat, bristling, any hint of vulnerability impeccably hidden. Gilbert didn't retort. They both knew it was true. He leaned back on a counter and tried to lose himself in the quiet.

Finally, the boy spoke.

'What happened to your forehead?'

'Bar fight.' Gilbert had no patience to explain. Silence reigned until his feet scuffed and he tried again.

'This is a film shop,' he said. Gilbert lifted his heavy head off the counter, squinting into the sunlight that shone into his eyes.

'Do you want me to buy something to keep you quiet?' he asked, not bothering to hide his sneer. He wasn't going to grovel to a kid. The colonel could shoot him for all he cared.

'No.' He shifted. 'If you're going to be here, can you help me sort these? I just got here, and I don't like working alone.' He gingerly placed a box of records down, and Gilbert sat up, suddenly alert. They were all Soviet songs, but it didn't matter. He hadn't heard music in so long.

'Where did you get these?'

The boy told him the place where some people could still find things if they looked hard enough. And then, hesitantly, drew out a strange record from the back of the box, holding it like it was a precious gem.

'There's a place where you can get Western music,' he whispered. Gilbert found himself leaning forward, even though it was ridiculous to be conversing about this with a child. He turned the record over. Both sides were printed with ghostly bones. 'They put it on X-rays and call it bone music. It's hard to play them and they're not very durable, but-'

'Where do you get them?' Gilbert demanded. An idea was forming in his mind, the kind that wove itself into him and filled him with electric energy.

The boy's eyes were huge in his pinched-thin face. He told, and Gilbert stripped off his jacket and started running through his city in the slate-grey cloudy morning.

The men at the old warehouse moved silently. Gilbert told them what he wanted, hesitating only briefly as he chose the record he could barely afford. He tucked them under his coat and walked out feeling lighter.

For that moment, he could forget about the Wall and the rest of the world. Music was a promise to see Roderich again, as foolish and dangerous as it was. He had never been good at playing by the rules. Roderich would get his safe life, but damn it all, he was going to remember Gilbert.

Even the prospect of his next shift patrolling the Wall couldn't stop his confidence and the warm remnants of his beer, as sick and self-assured as it was. Guarding the Wall when it wasn't around the Gate was easy, even when he found people sitting by the new construction who looked at him with such coldly disgusted expressions. Gilbert was lazily interested in the conversation until he spotted the gloves, worn leather and bright paint splatters.

He _knew_ those gloves. They were Mathias'. Before he could even think, the Dane was in front of him, hard blue eyes glaring into his.

It was like the world snapped back into focus. Gilbert was aware of the glint of the sun on his eyelashes and the gun in Mathias' coat, of the shade of concrete and blue eyes and the way he leaned towards the man with with the cold eyes and the heat of the day through his uniform. He could feel himself smiling, demanding Mathias go ahead, _damn_ him, pull out that gun and weld his skull to hot metal. He deserved it.

But to his complete surprise, Mathias turned on his heel and led the man away. Gilbert was left in the suddenly too-bright sun, oddly disappointed in a way. He'd been prepared for a second for the bullet, but things had gone differently and life carried on.

He leaned back against the concrete stumps that were beginning to mark the Wall and waited. The sun slid across the sky. His head was hurting again. The world didn't make sense. Mathias should have shot him. He didn't understand why he hadn't. Maybe that was what life had become in the East now- that he fell for people without a hope in the world at having them, that he deserved to be shot but wasn't. That he bought West music and dreamed of purple eyes.

God, he needed another drink.

He didn't know how long he stood there, staring into the concrete of the buildings, only that the sun started to slide away and the nightlife started to come out, and the sunset stained the world purple. The Soviets must be having their military marches again.

Someone moved by the row of buildings and something about the elegant way they did made Gilbert blink himself awake again.

'Do you have a death wish, aristocrat?' he said, just loud enough for the person to hear, hoping against hope for some reason that it was who he thought. The figure stopped, and after a long pause, folded out of its heavy coat to show mussed dark hair and bright eyes.

'I'm not the guard,' Roderich said. Gilbert shrugged away the pain and motioned him over. Roderich wavered, but obeyed, staying far enough away that Gilbert had to lean in.

'You looking for someone?' He couldn't help the teasing. Roderich bristled.

'No.'

'Then go.' Gilbert wanted to see how far he could push. 'There's no reason for the princess to be having a conversation with the guard, is there?'

'Be quiet.' Those entrancing eyes glared up at him.

'Really.' Gilbert walked closer and he held his ground. 'Tell me why you're so near the Wall.'

Roderich looked furious, but slowly, he nodded towards the marching song.

'There's no music here,' he said, and the fury drained from him. 'I doubt you've ever had experience with not being able to have something you truly care about, but I need music. Even if it's this.'

'I have music,' Gilbert said impulsively. He couldn't even think of the small, ironic barb.

Roderich's eyes went wide and shining and Gilbert's chest twisted so tight he couldn't breathe. Roderich shouldn't look at him like he hung the stars. It would only make it harder for them both.

'Really?'

'If you have a record player. I'll pick up the disk.'

Roderich looked like he was floating. He quickly told Gilbert his address and what time to be there, and then disappeared back into the concrete.

Gilbert didn't care if it wasn't time for his shift to end. Roderich- looking at him in that wonderful, terrible way- was going to ruin him. He breathed out harsh, because he'd let himself be ruined.

He could never keep his hands off what he should.

0o0o0o

The flat was near the Gate, one of the old houses, elegant and relatively whole despite the bombings. Gilbert trailed his fingers over the filigree door and knocked. The record was stiff underneath his jacket.

Roderich opened the door quickly, his face still shining with that hope. Gilbert couldn't make himself taunt him for it, even though hope would kill him.

'Here.' He held out the record. The old X-ray showed a ribcage, and the pattern was strangely beautiful save for the break, black and jagged through the middle. Roderich took it cautiously and ran his fingertips over the name written in careful grease pencil on the front. Elvis Presley.

'Where did you get this?'

'Don't ask.' Gilbert had to turn away, fold all of his body into a small armchair and try to stop feeling like his own chest would split open. In this quiet, elegant flat, there was only them and their unspoken words.

He lit a cigarette, trying to soothe himself with the comfortable smoke. Everything was too close and too much right now. Roderich frowned at him and put down the record beside the gramophone, and the knot in his chest loosened. The irritation was so much better.

'Do you have to smoke?'

'You're drunk,' Gilbert said. He could tell his movements weren't quite stable, and it made him feel worse. 'This city changes you. Do you want to try this, too?' He held out the cigarette.

After a long pause, Roderich abruptly sat down beside him on the chair and took the ember. The light threw against the planes of his face and reflected in his narrowed eyes. The chair wasn't big enough for both of them, and their knees and shoulders pushed together. Gilbert couldn't breathe.

'Go on,' he heard himself challenge.

He held it to his lips, fingers fumbling on the paper, and tried to breathe in, only to cough, blinking back tears. It couldn't be more obvious that he'd never done this before.

'Give me that,' he said, taking it. Roderich glared up at him.

'I don't need your help,' he said, but his voice was slower, slurred, his intense eyes unfocused. Drunkenness didn't look good on him. Gilbert pushed down his ache and and positioned his hands exaggeratedly on the paper.

Even blurry, his eyes fixed on him like he was trying to pull Gilbert apart to all his individual parts, into something that would make sense. Gilbert wished the world did make sense.

He closed his eyes against the purple of dusk and accusation and took a deep drag, holding the hot smoke in the back of his throat and teeth where all his words seemed to stick.

'Breathe in when I breathe out,' he instructed, wisps escaping around his lips. As soon as Roderich nodded, Gilbert gently gripped his chin and almost, almost fit their mouths together- close, so close already, and then their chests were together- and breathed out.

Roderich stiffened, and his hand came up to Gilbert's collar, but he breathed in and didn't cough. Gilbert held on for another moment, somehow unwilling to pull away, but he had to. His musician looked strange with the smoke curling from his lips, purple eyes faintly hazy. Gilbert was getting dizzy, too, not from cheap cigarettes but from the way the smoke licked around their mouths and their breaths mingled in the air. He could smell the cheap vodka and smoke and the soap he'd used. Roderich's teeth pulled across his lip, and his eyelashes fluttered.

'Not so hard, is it?' He made himself smile even though he felt like he was about to break, took another breath of smoke and got up to put on the music.

Roderich's hand tightened against his collar and pulled him back down, and whether it was the surprise or their own foolish hearts, this time their mouths met and Gilbert didn't pull away.

He tasted like smoke and how fall used to be, red leaves and old sun.

Roderich broke away first. He was breathing hard. Gilbert touched his mouth, head empty and light, floating.

'Do you have a death wish, aristocrat?' he murmured. Roderich wouldn't look at him, and God, he wanted to see. He gripped his face again and forced their eyes to meet.

Roderich looked like a man destroyed, open and waiting for judgement. His heart was pounding in his throat and it would be so easy to do it again, under the cover of smoke and alcohol.

Gilbert pulled himself away so quickly he nearly stumbled, even though he felt only like half of himself without that heat pressed against him. With steady hands, he put the music on and the sound crackled out.

'Wise men say, only fools rush in…'

A hand found his. Roderich's purple eyes were deeper than the sky. He wasn't wearing his ring. Gilbert brushed his thumb over the place it used to be, slid a hand around his hip, and slowly, they began a waltz.

'When I saw that you weren't wearing this, I thought…thought you'd found someone else.'

'No.' His voice was raspy and breathless. 'I didn't think you knew how to dance.'

'I don't.' Gilbert tried to smile, but Roderich looked up and met his gaze and he forgot everything except that brief moment of their lips pressed together. 'My brother made me learn.'

'Oh.' Roderich's grip tightened momentarily, and his mouth pulled into a smile or a grimace. Gilbert would never be able to look at him again without remembering how he tasted. Like autumn. 'I should have expected that.'

'You know what else people expect?' Gilbert touched the curve of his cheek, his voice catching in his throat. 'I know what I expect. I'm going to die here in this city.'

This time, his nails dug in through his uniform and his eyes flashed. 'No.'

Gilbert didn't respond, and the music crooned.

'I can't help falling in love with you…'

'Falling in love kills you here,' Gilbert said. The lights were blurring into halos around his dark hair, around his eyes, and Gilbert hurt. There was a touch at his wrist, between his glove and the cuff of his uniform that made him start, and then sliding up underneath his glove until Roderich pulled it off and pressed their bare palms together. His hand was warm, or Gilbert's was cold. His gaze never left his face.

'Elizabeta told me you can tell what people do by their scars.' He touched the callouses over his knuckles, the cigarette-burn scars. His expression was sad and distant and hopeless.

'What are mine saying?'

His hand drifted up to hover over the gash on his forehead, and then slipped down his collar and against an old scar. Gilbert's heart was in his throat as he unbuttoned his jacket enough for Roderich to trace down the break of his ribcage. The bones showed against the skin.

'That we're different,' he said.

'Doesn't take your wife to tell me that.' They had stopped twirling at some point, and now they were pressed together all along their chests and hips. He couldn't stand those eyes on him, piercing and lonely. He wanted to kiss him again.

Gilbert closed his eyes and started to sing. His voice broke on the rough notes, but he could feel every movement of theirs, a dance between two people who wanted to be closer but couldn't. When the song scratched to a stop, neither of them moved.

'You could have been an artist,' Roderich murmured against his neck. His lips met his throat, and heat speed from where they touched.

'Don't start dreaming, princess,' Gilbert said quietly. He could taste salt and copper. 'I'm nothing but a soldier.'

They stood there for a long time.

'Zeitgeist,' Roderich said finally. 'It means the spirit of the era, doesn't it?'

'It does.' Gilbert opened his eyes and kissed his hair. 'It's always been war and art here, it feels. Isn't it always, for people like us? War and art and falling in love wrong.'

Roderich didn't comment on the word us, and Gilbert relaxed into his embrace, letting out a ragged breath.

'I'm going to get you across the Wall if it's the last thing I do,' he promised, more to himself than Roderich. Hands slid up his shoulders, pushing against the uniform jacket.

'I don't want you to die,' he said, so softly Gilbert thought he wasn't supposed to hear. He laughed and kissed his cheek.

'You're drunk.'

'Gilbert.' His voice was defeated and broken. Gilbert let go of him and pressed him back into the chair.

'I gave you a choice to leave, aristocrat. You know where to find me.' He stepped away even though he wanted nothing but to be closer. 'The least you could do is thank me for saving you for your wife.'

Roderich turned away. Gilbert straightened his jacket and walked away, out into the night. The Wall loomed in the darkness, and Gilbert grinned at it, mad and wrecked, feeling like he'd crack all over the inside.

'I'll tear that down myself,' he promised himself, and only then did he keep walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've used too many song references.
> 
> :: Cross-taped stiff white bandages


	5. Chapter Five

_This is how you hold a gun_ , he'd taught Ludwig, adjusting his hands on the cold metal with edges softened by years. It always seemed to be him pushing his brother into these things. Teaching him how to drink, how to follow orders and love cities and become something better.

He watched the sunlight glint in the scratches of the barrel. A month in hash marks was already etched in, and morbidly, Gilbert wondered how many rifles' worth of years the Wall would stand. This gun would be smoking scrap before the concrete crumbled, and so would he.

He folded out his pocketknife with the wooden carved eagle handle- Antonio's handiwork- and added one more scratch. The gun was as good as anything here. It let him pretend he had the choice to claw his way through this knotted last tangle of barbed wire between the looming concrete blocks.

He tipped his head back and gazed out towards the guard post hulking down the line. Something glinted in the barred window, and he flashed a smile and lazily saluted. He couldn't bring himself to care what might happen because of someone who was just as starving and desperate as he was. There would be bigger problems today, or so said the orders. Somewhere in the West, soon the Americans would be commanding their gunners and their bombers, and they'd blow this burning city to shrapnel.

He shouldn't have spoken to Francis. It had only dug up old fears, old thoughts, how life used to be. If he closed his eyes, he could see the disgust in his familiar blue eyes, and so he stared into the grey of the Wall. Francis knew how to hurt him.

Someone was hunched over on a stray piece of concrete across the wire. Gilbert leaned against the Wall and watched.

'You know, you're the second person I've found sitting around here.'

The man jerked upright, brows furrowed in anger, mouth twisted. His eyes were bloodshot with drink.

'Who was the first?' he asked after a pause. Gilbert was surprised he bothered to respond. The tower loomed, but nobody would see him talking to a stray British soldier.

'Someone in love with an artist.' Both their gazes dropped to the man's twisting hands and the snarl pulling his lips back from his teeth.

'Don't you have places to be? Shouldn't they lock you in one of those new towers and make you shoot the people walking by?' He looked up, green eyes glittering with anger and hurt.

'If the colonel is shooting anyone, it'll be me.' The words were automatic, and Gilbert tensed, with an effort, preventing himself for checking over his shoulder for who was watching. He rushed on before the man could think about that. 'They called me in for something at the border. You're British military, aren't you? Have you seen anything with an officer named Ludwig? Six feet tall, all bulky muscle and broad shoulders, blue eyes?'

It was stupid to go asking the enemy, someone who couldn't keep his emotions from wearing across his voice, for Ludwig. But after Francis, Gilbert-  _missed_  him, more than oxygen, missed him like he missed being safe and being able to fall in love and laugh about it, and all those other things he could barely remember. He was a fool for all of it, and he just wanted to know if his baby brother was safe. Ludwig could hate him, he  _should_  hate him, and for all Gilbert cared Ludwig could denounce him and take up a name less stained with blood, but he would never forgive himself if he hadn't made it across the border that fateful night.

The man stared at him. Gilbert saw the flash of recognition in his eyes before the man realized himself, before he shut it away and turned his back, contemptuous.

'Why?'

'I just want to know if he's still alive.' He heard the plead in his own voice, giving into the challenge, and  _hated_  it. But this man had seen Ludwig, and the knowledge made him weak and dizzy. He had made it.

'I haven't.' He stood, eyeing his uniform. 'If you'll excuse me, I have to go back to saving this city from you.'

Gilbert gripped his fear and elation and bit back what he wanted to scream to the world, that he hadn't done everything wrong. If Ludwig was safe, the price of everything he'd given up was worthwhile.

(If Roderich could be safe he'd give the world; if he was allowed to  _stay_  here, where he would die, Gilbert might stop feeling like he was the one with the split-open chest.)

'Damn right you should.' Gilbert laughed, too loud in the still, too-bright air. 'I tried to do the same thing.'

He stilled and turned around. 'What did you say?'

Gilbert gave him his smile. 'Come down to the border, it'll be a show. Even I was called in. I'm not even a gunner.'

He twisted on his heel and walked, stumbling along the concrete barrier until the guard towers warned him off. He found himself in the shade of the buildings, pressing his hands to his hollow cheeks and the grimace stretched there, trying to breathe again. Ludwig was alive.

Ludwig was going to die at the border.

His obedient, perfect baby brother, who never knew when a cause was lost, when it was better to stop being a soldier. It was just another thing Gilbert had taught him, his death and life for a country. The reason they were still standing here in the same uniforms, the same war machines they'd always been.

Gilbert straightened up, smoothed back his hair, put his gun away, and started running.

0o0o0o 

It wasn't hard to find Ludwig, standing at the checkpoint with his sky and ice eyes and the sharp, aware way he moved, commanding his men into position. Gilbert could still read him, as vital a skill as being able to breathe, and he saw every emotion in those wide, shocked eyes when they met across the barbed wire, where nobody else could. Disbelief, and confusion, and  _hatred_ \- and that open, shattered expression he should never have had, the one that meant he still thought Gilbert was his sun and sky. That hurt most.

'Hello, baby brother,' Gilbert whispered into the quiet. He smiled, and Ludwig shuddered. 'I didn't know you were working at the checkpoint too.'

'Gilbert.' He said it like an unfamiliar word, testing out the new cadences and edges of who they were. Gilbert pretended it didn't hurt to hear his brother say his name like he wasn't quite sure if he knew how.

'Lutz.' He held out his hands, palms-up. 'I miss you.'

He didn't mean to say it, and Ludwig's eyes hardened and his face closed off suddenly, all the quirks and emotion suddenly gone, and it was like the sun disappeared.

'I won't be speaking to the enemy.' His gloved hands tensed on his gun, a perfect mirror of how Gilbert held his, the black leather smeared with faint colours. An artist. His brother loved an artist. Gilbert would have laughed if he didn't believe Ludwig would have shot him right then and there.

His brother's gaze met his, steely and deep blue and blank.

'You're lucky I don't shoot. Not anymore,' he said quietly. His voice cracked on the last word, and he turned his back and marched away, head held high. The curl of ink on his shoulder glinted for a moment before his uniform shifted again and it was lost, just like the rest of him.

The tanks groaned in the pale light and Gilbert thought about people who carved notches into paper and the soles of boots for love and for loss and sometimes for both.

0o0o0o

Roderich was woken disoriented and fumbling, blinking into the moonlight, a knot of terror in his chest at the thought of the tanks again before he realized all was quiet. He unlatched the window and the cold air gusted in. Gilbert stood below, gazing up. Something shadowed his face, an expression Roderich couldn't understand.

'The tanks are gone, princess,' he said quietly.

'It's safe?'

It wasn't his familiar smile-  _God_ , they shouldn't be familiar enough to tell- cracking across his face, but it was close. 'It's Berlin.'

It was an answer for everything.  _It's Berlin_ , so he was allowed to drink and breathe smoke and  _more_. It was Berlin, glorious and burning, and this man stood in the middle of it all.

'What are you doing?'

'Taking you somewhere.' He shrugged, and the loose slide of his limbs was drunken even from the distance. 'If you want.'

Roderich should say no. But if all he was going to dream was his kiss again, he should go, he reasoned, and so slid out of bed and hurried down.

'Why did you come here?' He was shivering, underdressed, but he refused to say so as Gilbert began briskly walking. It was early, early morning, grey and empty, and Gilbert staggered when he moved. His usual grace was gone.

'Only place I could.'

Roderich opened his mouth to ask more, but Gilbert shook his head and barked a rough laugh. 'Be quiet. I'm not going to tell you.'

The outline of the opera house soon dawned in front of them, and Roderich couldn't help his pleasant surprise.

'Makes me think of you,' Gilbert said. He rocked back on his heels, gazing up at the old building. 'Shouldn't have survived the wars. Shouldn't be surviving  _here_ , but it is.' His gaze slid sideways to him. 'Amazing, isn't it?'

'This city is history  _and_  art, you said.'

'So I said.' Gilbert looked amused, but that odd shadow still lingered over him. 'Come on. I need to be higher up.'

He easily hauled himself up onto a short series of ledges and perched on a flat section of roof. Roderich was caught staring at where his worn shirt rode up, and Gilbert's mouth twisted. Not his usual smile, but close, close. Roderich braced himself for an insult, but Gilbert just held out his hand. When they were both up among the wind and the grey light, Gilbert pulled out a flask.

'Brandy. None of that shitty vodka.' He raised it for a moment, staring out towards the west, and took a drink before passing it to Roderich. He took a hesitant sip and it burned like fire on the way down, making him cough. Gilbert's body heat was all along his shoulder and side, and neither of them moved.

(They'd  _kissed_  and he couldn't stop  _thinking_ -)

Gilbert glanced over at him for a second, half of a second, and Roderich wanted to see more. It would always be like this now.

'Did something happen?' Roderich asked, out towards the city. 'At the border?'

He expected Gilbert to mock him, or lie, or anything. But he just stared out and nodded.

'My brother,' he said simply. 'I should...shouldn't have gone to see him.'

'Oh, Gilbert,' he said helplessly.

'I know.' A flicker of a smile. 'Did you know he's in love with an artist?'

'Oh.' Roderich couldn't meet his eyes suddenly, and stared at his hands.  _Did you know I'm in love with you_ , he wanted to say. He couldn't. He wouldn't. 'I'm sorry.'

'I'm not the one who's going to be sorry.'

Their hands brushed against the tiles. Gilbert hummed part of the Elvis song he'd brought, and Roderich couldn't resist putting his hand on his shoulder.

'I'm sorry, Gilbert. Really.'

He went still, and his soft music stopped. He didn't look at him, but he didn't move away, and the seconds stretched. Roderich kept his eyes on his sparing profile, pleading. The tension snapped out of him, relief slackening his lines until he almost looked asleep. He was painfully beautiful and it hurt.

'If you knew more you wouldn't be,' he said. His eyelashes were silvery and made patterns of light. Roderich couldn't speak, so he waited. From up here, he couldn't see the Wall.

'Did you know I have a tattoo?' he asked, quietly. 'We both do.'

Before Roderich could say anything, he'd turned and pushed his thick silvery hair back, pulling down his collar where his pulse raced like sparrow wings.

Roderich's eyes were drawn down to the shift of his neck, the burn scars barely hidden by the untucked hair there. And then- his words caught in his throat- the muscles standing out, the black ink. He wanted to slide his hand up into his hair and pull him in. He wanted to kiss him again.

Gilbert was staring at him now, and Roderich kept his eyes fixed on the ink instead of meeting his eyes, because if he did he would kiss him and forget to stop.

'Like what you see, darling?' His teasing voice wasn't quite as far from honest as usual.

'What is it?'

Gilbert tilted his head, all pretense gone, open and raw. 'Do you want to find out?'

He swallowed, and Gilbert followed the motion of his throat, his eyes dragging up to his mouth and eyes. Dangerous, dangerous, but Roderich was forgetting to care.

'Yes.'

Gilbert leaned closer almost hesitantly, in jerky motions. Their bodies were pressed close in the rising sunlight, tangled nerve endings and tangled lives. Somewhere across the Wall there was Elizabeta and peace, and here there was  _him_ , and Roderich wanted nothing but that.

'I shouldn't kiss you,' Gilbert said. Roderich just nodded, knowing, pleading, needing, and this time when their mouths met they didn't stop.

'Songbird.' Gilbert laughed breathlessly, and when they finally broke to breathe his smile was the same terrible, wonderful thing it had always been and Roderich was cracked open inside. 'You're going to kill me.'

But he grinned, and the shadow of pain finally eased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :: Unabashed and unapologetic laughter


	6. Chapter Six

Roderich was awake when the knock came, staring at the chest of drawers where he'd hidden his ring and thinking of Gilbert. It had been so easy to stand up, shuffle through the clothes, and put his ring back on, and he'd been tempted before, but now, it didn't feel quite as right. The circle lay in the middle of his palm, heavy and cold. The steady warmth it promised had always comforted him, but now he knew about the blazing temper and steel just under Gilbert's words, the heat and fear and danger that came with kissing him like adrenaline and lighting running from where they touched. Now he knew, and the ring didn't sit as well around his finger anymore. It was something he'd never get used to. There was no _getting used to_ someone who'd been war-shaped like he was. Not while the world still had guns and people willing to use them, because Gilbert would be right there among the front line. It was in his nature, Roderich could tell, just as war was in the nature of people.

He couldn't think of some future where the wars were nothing more than bad memories and the nuclear bombs had been locked back away, because if he did, it was that rough, rasping, gorgeous accent made fond and that _wild_ smile, hurricane, hellfire, and solar powered. Elizabeta would call him a hopeless romantic, and he was. Roderich opened the drawer and pushed aside the shirts to put the ring away again, but couldn't. It was a promise to return, a promise Gilbert had made him. There was no use dreaming of a future where the Wall would still split them apart, where they'd already made their decisions to set themselves on different paths. _History, and art_.

He was standing there when the knock came, so soft that if he'd been asleep he would have never heard it. Roderich hastily dropped the ring back on top of the shirts and hurried downstairs. He couldn't think who would be this early, but he opened the door regardless.

'Roderich, isn't it?' the huge man at the door said with an odd smile. Roderich stared at him warily, noticing the flash of early sun on the many medals on the front of his dark Stasi greatcoat.

'Who are you?'

'Has Gilbert not spoken of me?' The man cocked his head, his smile gleaming. Roderich curler his hands into fists. He didn't like the way this man knew his name, or the amused curl of his lip when he said Gilbert's name. Somehow, he knew that he wouldn't be able to deny what he knew of Gilbert.

Reluctantly, he nodded inside.

'We can discuss this,' he said stiffly. The man ducked inside and settled himself at the table. Roderich noticed the record player still sitting beside the armchair, and forced himself to turn his back on it.

'You know Gilbert,' the man said. Inside, there was a stillness to him, a heaviness like a breathing marble carving. What disturbed Roderich most as he sat down across from him was how he held his head exactly the same as Gilbert did, cocked and hungry and glittering.

'Yes,' Roderich agreed, still wary. 'We've met a few times.'

'He is one of my guards.' The man spread his arms and his smile widened. 'Forgive me, I should introduce myself, shouldn't I? Colonel Ivan Braginsky.'

'You work at the Wall.'

'We all work for the country, musician.' He learned forward, pale, scarred hands spread flat against the dark wood. 'Your Gilbert built the barbed wire. Did you know that?'

He hadn't. He shouldn't have been surprised, but it thudded into his chest, a dull blow, regardless.

'We don't talk of such things.'

'Not suitable talk for someone such as yourself.' The colonel's eyes danced, pale as slush and intense. 'What has he told you?'

Too much, and he would never tell a single word of it. _Did you know I have a tattoo_ , he'd said.

'Why would you care?' Roderich tried to glare, but he felt chilled, all the way down to the core. 'He's not mine.'

'That's right.' The colonel smiled like a shark, eyes suddenly alight. 'He's mine.'

Gilbert _belonging_ to anyone had always seemed wrong. He belonged to the city's buildings and lights and the roar of its people after dark. But the idea of this man claiming him made a strange beast roil and screech inside of him, beating a war drum against his heart.

'I don't know him,' Roderich said through anger-thickened throat. 'Not well.'

'He is fascinated by you, musician.' Braginsky studied him intently. 'Gilbert Beilschmidt, who couldn't even care for his brother, who turned on his own resistance. And yet he sneaks away when he thinks nobody sees him to buy music and run with you. What is happening?'

'He knew my fiancé.' Roderich could feel himself shaking with rage, even though he couldn't figure out exactly why. It was something tangled up with coppery wolf eyes and Gilbert and the promise of seeing him. 'It is nothing else.'

Braginsky looked almost disappointed, but a gleam of delight showed through. 'Even if you do not know him well, you should know how he cannot help from speaking his mind and acting on whatever catches his fancy. You will remind him, perhaps, next time you meet, what happens to my soldiers who do not conduct themselves properly, especially around…' He gestured casually across Roderich's body, and he fought to keep from recoiling.

'We are not like that,' he said, voice somehow even through his rage. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear down the Wall and every piece this man created.

Braginsky just shook his head, and Roderich sunk nails into his own palms to stop from shouting.

'You shouldn't lie, Roderich Edelstein.' He gathered himself and rose, and just before he left, he leaned in until his lips brushed Roderich's ear. 'Loving Gilbert Beilschmidt will kill you,' he whispered, and then he was gone, leaving Roderich alone and staring at the swinging door. It was a long time before he got up to close it.

His hands were still shaking, and he slammed the door too hard before collapsing at the table and pressing his hands through his hair, a scream working up through his throat. He loved Gilbert. He shouldn't. He shouldn't, for so many reasons, because he was crude and arrogant and beautiful, and because of Elizabeta, and because it would kill them both. But Roderich loved him enough to hurt.

He wrapped himself in the old coat again and left. He wanted to see him again, no matter what. He wanted the smoke and excitement for one night before they would figure out a way to leave. It was a foolish idea, but he wanted it all the more for that.

0o0o0o

Lingering outside the Roman felt exposed and a worse idea the longer he stood, but he kept his eyes on the steady stream of Wall guards in their grey and dark uniforms and waited until a voice spoke behind him.

'You know, they don't like me here anymore.' Gilbert looked exhausted and charged and unstable on his feet. His collarbones were exposed and shockingly pale against his dark shirt. Roderich never knew what to say to him.

'I was told to warn you.'

'How polite.' Gilbert jerked his head at another bar down the street where he'd obviously been heading. 'Come talk to me in there. If it's not too crude for you, princess.' He grinned, challenging, and Roderich felt familiar warmth respond.

The bar was crowded and roaring and dark, more smoke than substance. They were crushed too close together, and Roderich regretted his coat. He shied away from the other people, trying to keep away from the knots of people dancing.

'Too hot for you?' Gilbert raised a challenging eyebrow and Roderich, in a burst of defiance, slipped off his overcoat, leaving him only in a light tank top. The air was heavy with heat, and Roderich wondered where to put the coat for a moment before resigning himself to asking Gilbert. He looked over and was stopped short by the look on Gilbert's face. The roaring bar seemed to draw back for a moment with the intense, shocked look on his face before he buried it.

'God, you're pale,' he muttered. Pink spotted high in his cheeks, and Roderich wondered if it was embarrassment or drink.

'Have you seen yourself?'

Gilbert shot him an arresting look. 'Aren't you bold today. Coming to find me at a bar.' His hair was sticking up in the back.

'You're drunk.'

'Yeah. And you're beautiful. Things don't change anymore.' His eyes were half-glazed, and Roderich wondered if he knew what he was saying, but before he could respond, Gilbert swung his head towards the nearest empty table. 'Tell me what's happened, princess. Your warning.'

They settled down, and Roderich thought about how strange it was that only this morning he'd talked with Braginsky across a table very similar. Now, in the technicolour, Gilbert was blazed a thousand different shades, and Roderich could feel the heat from his skin where their hands lay close together.

'Colonel Braginsky came to talk to me.'

Gilbert flinched, and his eyes, flashing different colours as the lights rotated, flicked up to him, suddenly alert. 'He's a dangerous man. What did he say to you?'

Roderich's mouth was dry. 'He wanted me to remind you what happens to his soldiers. If they…' He grimaced, but nodded at himself.

Gilbert was still for a long second before he threw his head back and laughed, loud and unabashed and choking on the high notes, like he'd never really learned how.

'Princess,' he hissed, face still twitching towards a grin and a grimace. 'You're gonna kill me.'

Roderich stared at him, an odd, wanting need clawing up his throat. 'Braginsky will kill you.'

'Ivan has to get to me first. And that's not what I'm _talking_ about, songbird.' Gilbert leaned forward and covered his hand with his broader one. 'I mean you. All of you. You really don't know what you do to me, do you?'

Everything hung between them, all their strange alliances and promises. Roderich kept his eyes on their hands overlapping. He wanted this.

'I want to see your tattoo,' he said. 'You promised.'

'I promised,' Gilbert echoed, almost lost in the pounding noise. His thumb stroked in circles, and for a second he looked lost in the memory of the roof before he came back with a brilliant, unknowable smile. 'Go on and kill me, princess, I don't think I'll even blame you.'

'You won't die,' Roderich responded firmly. He had to. He had to believe that.

'Come on.' Gilbert kissed the side of his mouth, quick as thought. 'I wouldn't if I could stop falling for you.'

His head buzzed and he could feel their pulses beating together. 'I shouldn't do this.'

'I know.' Gilbert stared at their hands, absorbed in imagery. 'Promise me something, princess?'

'Anything.' Maybe it was guilt or just the shine in his eyes.

'Don't forget me.' There was terror and sadness under his smile. 'You'll be a great musician, you know. Gonna make the whole world think of you. Someone like you isn't for me, but when you're gone, when you're safe, well-' His canines showed and he turned away to hide the twist of his face, voice soft and lilting. 'Remember me. Try not to hate me too much for what I want to do.'

The residue of smoke in the air and the way their knees met under the table made his whole body feel off-centre and shaking. 'I said I...I wanted it.' He gripped his hand tighter and said softly, almost unwilling to get the painful words out, 'I think I love you.'

The words lingered in the air, and Gilbert stared at him, his arrogance and guardedness stripped away to leave him just a man with pained eyes and hope he'd never been able to lose. Gilbert was forty percent bad decisions and sixty percent misguided caring and alcohol- or was it the other way round? Roderich couldn't think, could only watch the open shift of his beautiful face and think, maybe this guard wasn't as far from art as he'd thought, because wasn't it that _artists had the strangest hearts_ , and theirs were the same.

'Oh.' His eyelashes fluttered and his mouth twitched, trying to remember words. 'Roderich.'

It was his name that broke him, made him need to be closer like a physical loss.

'I want to…' His voice failed. 'Can I stay with you? Tonight?'

Gilbert's expression sharpened into fierce, raw hunger, and he wound their hands together.

'If you're sure,' he growled. Roderich met his gaze evenly, shrugged his jacket back on, and nodded.

Gilbert's place was grey and smelled like metal and alcohol. Gilbert didn't leave him a chance to look at much, but he paused, mouth near his shoulder.

'Not many other places to sleep anymore,' he said with a hint of amusement. Then the door clicked shut on his bedroom and Roderich was nearly overtaken by the idea of it, that he was here, that he was with him. Every part of him hummed down to his fingertips.

His attention was drawn to a picture on the bedside table, the only bright spot there. It was a picture of a young man, taken half between a laugh and a disapproving expression, surprised and secretly delighted. His hair was messy and a pale hand extended from the edge of the frame, ruffling it. The hand had less scars than the one wrapped around Roderich's shoulder. Roderich could see how close they looked with hair messy.

'My baby brother.' Gilbert stared at it, mouth working. 'That was the last time I saw him happy for a long time.'

'When was it?'

Gilbert rubbed the cigarette burn scars on his arm. 'Two years ago. Before a lot of it.'

'I'm sorry,' Roderich said honestly. Gilbert shook himself out of it and gave him a look.

'It doesn't matter anymore.' He carefully turned the picture face-down and they settled at the edge of the bed, their needy energy not quite as frantic now, but hot and smouldering against their chests.

'You said you'd show me your tattoo.' Roderich swallowed against the thickness in his throat and forced his eyes up from the entrancing way Gilbert's shirt slipped across his collarbones. He laughed quietly and unzipped the shirt, shrugging away from the leathery texture. The black tank top underneath clung to him, and Roderich's mouth went dry. He wanted to touch every part of him, run his palms across the way his body curved.

'Stop staring, princess.' His voice was hoarser than normal. 'Or kiss me.'

It was no contest, really. Roderich took a breath, promised himself to remember the future and the past in the morning, only in the morning, and kissed him. Gilbert kissed back this time, hard and hungry. They fit together so well it sent a new ache down his chest. His skin was blazing hot.

'How-' He was gasping and Gilbert had wound his hands in Roderich's heavy coat and was stripping it from his tingling shoulders. 'How is one punished for- for something like this?'

'Five years in prison if you're lucky. A bullet if you're not. And you're too stubborn to be lucky, aren't you? So fucking _sure_ you're right about everything.' His body pressed Roderich's back against the headboard. 'You make it so hard to save you, princess, God. I need to save you, but if you let me do this…'

'You'll want me to stay here?' Roderich challenged. He didn't want to stay, but right now, Gilbert made him feel invincible.

'Yes,' Gilbert whispered, anger and disdain at himself dripping off his words. He jerked him closer by the collar of his tank top. 'Five years, princess. That's what we're worth. I could get that much making a joke where I shouldn't.'

'Have you?'

'No.' His hand traced up the side of his face, eyes almost hazy. 'I'd rather go to prison for this.'

'You won't,' Roderich said, trying to be confident. Gilbert shook his head.

'What makes you so sure?' Before he could answer, he reached behind himself and pulled off the tank top in one motion, and Roderich forgot how to do anything but stare.

He was beautiful in a cruel, painful way, full of scars and harsh angles, everything unnecessary stripped away and half the things necessary as well, like knowing how to fall in love and then back out. This time, Gilbert said nothing and let him look, but he glanced away, the bumps of his spine pushing against scarred skin.

'I'm not as pretty as you, I know.'

'I think you're beautiful.'

'Beautiful.' Gilbert shook himself off like the word felt cold, and turned so Roderich could press his palms against pale skin. The ink glistened. He looked like art, and there was so much sadness in his gaze that Roderich could barely speak. He wanted to show him how he looked, like an angel and a moonlight-struck holy thing and living steel. But he bit back his words and traced the ink.

'What is it?' he asked, but even as he said it, he saw the dark lines resolve themselves into familiar shapes.

Gilbert's expression was liquid-soft in the moonlight. 'An eagle.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :: Bruises in red and blue


	7. Chapter Seven

Roderich let him take off the tank top and lay him down, every movement as close to cautious as he could be. His hands knotted into fists in the sheets.

'Gilbert,' he finally interrupted, resting a hand on his shoulder. He shivered, body trembling between pushing closer and flinching back, staring at him like he couldn't believe they were there, full of uncertainty- that was it, Roderich realized, the  _fear_  like he'd never seen before. 'Gilbert, look at me.'

He did, their familiar challenge and conflict just under the surface. 'Why are you letting me do this?'

'Because I love you,' Roderich said. After the words were out, he touched his mouth, shocked at himself.

'You shouldn't,' Gilbert told him. His eyes slid shut and he growled rough and frustrated. 'I shouldn't let you, god damn it all.'

'Gilbert-'

'Be quiet.' Gilbert caught him in a kiss, harsh and bruising and fierce. 'Damn you, Roderich, you impossible, beautiful thing. You aren't supposed to be in Berlin. Not like this. We aren't supposed to be like this.'

'How are we supposed to be?' He kissed the hollow under his ear, unable to resist. Gilbert groaned, hard heat rocking against him, making him dizzy.

'That's it, princess. In any better world you'd never kiss a Wall guard and I wouldn't be forgetting every rule I've ever known for some pretty, infuriating musician.'

He sat back, waiting with glittering bird eyes for his rebuke, but in the new light Roderich could see every harsh scar on his body and all he wanted was to touch. One shone across his heart, marring his chest, and when Roderich reached for it, his whole body trembled.

'Where did you get this?'

'Dividing a country does things to you,' he said brusquely. His hand hovered over the scar, protecting or wanting to touch it himself, Roderich didn't know- then dropped to the waist of Roderich's trousers. 'I don't remember everything I've done. I don't want to.'

'Are you going to forget me?'

He bared his teeth. 'As if I could. I'd keep waiting for you to come back, as long as it took.' His thumb dipped below the waistband, down the vee of his hips, and then worked his boxers off and cupped him, making him gasp, head thudding back in the pillows. His hands were rough and warm, and he could still feel his own heat against his thigh, maddeningly close.

'So fucking  _beautiful_  and you don't even know it,' Gilbert breathed into his chest, broad hand stroking closer. 'You want me to tell you that? You should see yourself.'

Roderich held onto a handful of his silvery hair and kissed him harder, overwhelmed and yet hungry for more,  _give me everything, everything you've never shown anyone else_. He wanted Gilbert, wanted to know him, all his hidden parts and his late-night thoughts and kiss every scar he had, wanted to be with him beyond this night and split city.

Gilbert let go and he nearly cried out, wanting to be closer. His head was full of the smoke they'd shared and the taste of alcohol and sweat.

'Shh, Roderich, just need to…' He gasped, sounding just as wrecked as Roderich felt, and laced their hands together, pulling him close to his chest where he could hear the bird-fast pounding of his heart and the scrape of a jar of cream. 'I don't want to hurt you.'

'I'll be fine.' He braced himself through the sting, Gilbert was less than gentle, but Roderich didn't want any less. Gilbert was rough and sharp and he loved him like that.

He finally drew out and Roderich let himself be laid back, body humming. Gilbert brushed his hair back from his face in a pause, a tender gesture that didn't belong to them. They knew that, they knew that what they promised wasn't theirs to give or take, but they did it anyways.

Gilbert kissed his throat and pulled himself out of his boxers. The jeans scraped along his legs and when they slid together for the first time Roderich's head fell back again, tears stinging in his eyes, emotion setting off sparks in every place they touched.

'Roderich,' he whispered, and then pushed in, heat and pressure. He moved roughly, harsh and needy, forcing the breath from his lungs, and he wouldn't have it any other way, didn't want his unapologetic, brash Gilbert to be gentle when nothing about them was gentle. His hair was wild and his eyes were sliding half-closed, drinking in the sight of him.

'Tell me...tell me what you want.'

'I want you.'

A shadow of his wolf-smile, soft and broken. 'I'll give it.'

Lights shimmered around Gilbert's head like a halo and his movements were pure worship, breathing prayer into his skin,  _God you're everything, everything, I want to give you everything_. Roderich whispered his name over and over, chests glimmering with starlight, these broken and hoping words like their own gospel.

His nails were digging into his back, leaving red scratches in that scarred pale skin, bright with the moon, needing all of this, all of him, so close to slipping off that edge. Gilbert's thumb brushed below his eyes and came away damp. His hands were shaking as he cupped his head and his movement slowed.

'You don't know how much I wish you were safer,' he said, voice breaking. 'You deserve better than I can give.'

'I want you, Gilbert.' He imagined he could feel the ink of the eagle on his back as he held there. Gilbert let himself be pulled down to kiss. 'You are everything I want.'

'I want you to remember me, Roderich. Once you're gone. Once you're happier.' In their kiss, he tasted salt. 'But you have to promise me you won't.'

'I can't- you said-'

'I know what I said. I was wrong. Don't argue with me. Not now. Not about this.' He kissed his eyelids, eyelashes damp against his forehead. 'You have to. Just- just let me do this. Please.'

That quiet, shattered plead broke him, and Gilbert wrapped a hand around him and Roderich buried his face in his shoulder, crying out.

'Let me hear you,' he whispered. 'Go on, songbird, beautiful-'

The knot of heat pulled tight and all he could feel clearly was Gilbert's praise. They both came down shaking and leaving marks. Gilbert collapsed half on top of him, head curled on his chest, heaving breaths and skin velvet with sweat. Roderich felt wrecked and utterly taken apart. He knew he should go home, that if anyone found them like this it would be a bullet, but Gilbert's eyes were half-lidded and his mouth looked bruised redder with kisses. He never wanted to leave, and so they fell asleep together.

0o0o0o

Roderich woke up sore and warm and still awed. Gilbert was still asleep, the hollows of his eyes and cheeks looking bruised. His eyelashes caught the light, and the tension had vanished from his face. He looked younger.

He pulled his boxers back on and looked around the room. There were old pictures of birds strung up, all with an eye for beauty. He must have taken them. Roderich touched him and he snapped awake, grabbing his wrist before he let go.

'How long have you been awake, princess?' His voice was scratchy.

'I just woke up.' He was sore, and when he shifted, Gilbert caught the motion, and a hint of his old smile came back before it vanished again. The knot of pain was working back into his jaw, and Roderich resisted the urge to kiss it away. Why was it that after last night they felt even further away from each other?

Gilbert say up to collect his shirt from the end of the bed. The scratches on his back were still obvious, and the eagle tattoo was finely detailed in the proper daylight. The sun shone off his back, illuminating the knobs of his spine and the ripples of his starved body. The city still went on.

'You haven't said you loved me yet,' Roderich said suddenly. Gilbert stopped, still facing the wall, face hidden.

'I was trying not to.'

'Why?'

'Do you want me to?' Gilbert countered, suddenly turning on him. 'Haven't  _you_  heard loving a Beilschmidt is dangerous? That everyone I love I end up getting killed or captured by the Stasi or sent off somewhere I'll never see them again?'

'That's not going to happen to me.'

Fire flashed in his eyes, and he grabbed him, one hand on his shoulder, one on his hip, pushing him back against the wall again. 'You're always, always so fucking  _stubborn_. I don't want you getting  _hurt_.'

Roderich held his gaze, terrified of what would happen but wanting it, that deep ache he'd always held soaking through into every part of him.

'I love you.'

Gilbert broke their gaze first.

'I love you, Roderich,' he said quietly, voice cracking. He looked utterly vulnerable. Roderich, heart fluttering in his throat, touched the wound on his forehead and Gilbert took his hand and set it over that scar on his chest, in this broken city. His body arched over his like moonlight.

'You're beautiful,' he said honestly. Gilbert's eyes widened, halfway to a laugh, disbelieving. His features seemed to be sliding between old and young, war-weathered or avant-garde. Roderich could believe he was made of nothing more than memories of this city.

The rough pad of his thumb brushed across his cross necklace like he'd only then noticed what it was. Roderich unclasped it with shaking hands and let Gilbert stare at it like it was salvation and a weapon all at once, like he finally saw himself in something.

'Remember what I said?' he rasped. 'Go on and break me, aristocrat, and I don't think I'll even hate you too much for it.' He closed the cross between their bodies as they met each other, as gentle as they could be.

0o0o0o

Gilbert stopped sleeping for a while. How could he, when everything he did reminded him of electric-burn fingerprints in his spine and his name in that soft voice, leaving marks like trenches in his broken-mountain back?

It was wrong, what he did, but God, it if didn't feel right. Gilbert stared out into the sun and tried to stop thinking of how his skin had felt and let go of the  _want want want_. He shouldn't have been allowed that taste of what a different life could be, because now the cell at the Wall felt claustrophobic. Soldiers weren't supposed to dream.

It was one of those empty, dreaming days that he thought he saw Ludwig again, pacing the Wall. From Gilbert's post in the guard tower, he was nothing more than a pressed uniform and the flinty spark of his old pistol. They weren't close enough to do anything but shoot, just like all wars. Ludwig turned like he had seen a half-remembered ghost and Gilbert ducked back inside, back to the wall inside the concrete cell. His breathing came hard.

'They told me you had a peculiar fondness for looking at Western officers.'

Gilbert refused to look at him. He let his eyes slip closed and imagine himself at a closer range, the way fighting was supposed to be, blood and the light in their eyes and hard muscle right up against yours.

'It's none of your goddamn business who I look at, Ivan,' he said calmly.

'It is when you make foolish decisions.' The cuffs of his greatcoat brushed the tips of his fingers, itching. Gilbert was heavy all over with dreams and for once in his firebrand life he didn't think he would win the fight. He curled his hands into fists and tasted copper.

'Roderich Edelstein. Quite a pretty name.'

'You hurt him and I swear to God I'll kill you,' Gilbert spat. He finally opened his eyes and saw Ivan suffocatingly close, the breadth of his chest hot and cold. His scarf fluttered. He met his eyes and knew he'd already signed his own death warrant. Soldiers weren't supposed to care, especially about musicians or little brothers who were supposed to be further away.

'I only came to tell you about your new assignment. We have a wealth of new prisoners. You might recognize yourself in some of them.'

_No._

His broad hand came down on his shoulder. He thought Ivan would be cold, but his skin was warm. His eyes were pale violet, like melting slush, nothing like sunset. Nothing like his Roderich.

'Don't make a commotion, Gilbert. We both know how much worse it is on the other side of the bars.'

The gun at his hip caught sunlight in the hash marks. Gilbert could grab it. Ivan was waiting for him to try to fight back.

He jerked himself away and walked out of the concrete cell into another prison, head held high. The door shut, and Gilbert gripped an old, worn necklace still lying in his pocket. He'd given it up, the promise of being saved, a long time ago, and that shouldn't be waking up again.

 _I promised_ , he repeated to himself. He'd save Roderich if it killed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :: Messy hair both deliberate and accidental


	8. Chapter Eight

Missing people, Gilbert had learned, was just as dangerous as leaving your other wounds untreated. Loneliness festered. He missed his friends and his brother and the life they'd had before he ever learned about the Wall, as bloody and harsh as it had been. He missed Elizabeta, their contests and fiery victories, and the only solace was that she was safe. He missed Roderich. He was fucking _terrified_ for him, even if he didn't have the luxury of trying to understand why he needed to protect him so desperately. If he was more careful, if he was being careful at all, he wouldn't be with him like they were.

He shouldn't be thinking of things like that. He halfheartedly swung the keys on his belt from his pointer finger, resisting the urge to rip off the coarse new uniform. Only the one to unlock the door actually worked, of course, they weren't going to risk someone like him with access to open the cells. Not that he wanted to see who they had, of course, he knew some of them were from him. Feliks, probably. He wouldn't blame him if he tried something like Mathias had done.

The problem was the silence. It pressed down, like a weight Gilbert could taste in the back of his throat. Worse than the silence was the harsh noises of people getting interrogated- but Gilbert forgot those, he had to forget them, he drowned himself in too much drink and not enough good things and burned the noises out of his blurry, lonely head. This place in the back streets of his city was so far away from any of the electric life that felt like a second and better heartbeat, so far away from the border and the Wall and his brother. Further, at least, from the stupid hope that he'd be able to run if the West was only fingertips away.

It was better that he was at the prison if it made him remember he was just a street kid from the wrong side of the Wall.

The days dragged into nothing the longer he wore the new uniform. Gilbert started staying out later.

He knew he didn't love easily. He loved his baby brother, the way he worshiped him even grown up, the naïveté he always had about love, the way he was getting better- he _was_ , before Gilbert threw him out, was getting so much better. He loved Roderich beyond words for his brilliance and his tragedy, the two things Gilbert had never been able to resist. He'd take on the world for the light he saw in those purple eyes.

Roderich was _beautiful_ in the stars and darklights of Berlin and Gilbert loved him like he couldn't breathe. Some days, _most days_ , he wished he didn't love him quite so much, because it hurt so much to, or because he wondered what he'd be like if he was still untouchable like the resistance taught him, with nothing soft for the Stasi to sink their teeth into. But sometimes he saw him like this, perfect and beautiful and his even though he shouldn't be, suited to someone better than him, and Gilbert knew that he couldn't stop being in love any more than he could tear down the Wall.

Perhaps the two things were connected, he thought, and then decided that he preferred not thinking at all, and ordered another drink.

Roderich didn't shout at him to leave when he found him in one of the clubs. Stumbled upon him, more like it, too drunk to stand or think, but he just sat there, purple eyes unfazed. Gilbert couldn't even work up the energy to tell him he shouldn't be here.

'Look at you,' Gilbert slurred, crumpling down on the seat behind him. He pressed hands to the small of his back, breathing in the drug of being near him, the one person left who'd understand. 'Why are you with me, princess? Did you hear they threw me into the prison duty? Do you _hear_ what they say about me?'

'I hear the rumours,' Roderich said. The quiet, calm tone of his voice was infuriating.

'Do you? Because from what I've seen,' he crooned, ' _you don't know anything_.'

He stood up in the roaring dark and snarled back, and Gilbert _reveled_ in it. He deserved it and it felt like release.

'I _don't_ know,' he said, shaking with anger. 'You're a blind fool, and you're a guard. Mathias was right, you know, and I don't know why I stay by a traitor to everything he's ever _known_.'

'Because there's nobody else,' Gilbert breathed, gazing up at him. Roderich's eyes brightened, and Gilbert tipped his head up to be struck. He expected it.

Instead, Roderich grabbed him by the collar until it choked him and dragged him up to kiss him hard. Gilbert kissed him back, desperate for the tastes of Berlin, his heart, the last thing he had ever loved, hiding himself in the lifeblood of the gleaming streets until Ludwig would find him again.

He had to. They shared this city, their heart. Half and half, cut down the middle with barbed wire and concrete. But Ludwig was safe even if he hated him and that was enough to let him sleep, he just _wished_ Roderich was the same.

'Because I love you,' he said hoarsely, purple eyes gleaming. 'And I'm sorry for it.'

'Look at that,' Gilbert whispered, tucking his hair behind his ear. 'You might finally have a chance to survive in this city, princess.'

0o0o0o

In this uniform, he stood before the mirror and it took a moment longer before he could see himself. Some days he pressed his palm to his chest and felt a stutter there. Some days he lay in bed and listened to the raindrops on the windowsill and did not scream, did not rage against the crumbling world, only lay there and wished he could be someone better for Roderich.

Someone was hammering on the door. Gilbert groaned, yanking on trousers before he went to answer it. He didn't want to get arrested wearing his boxers.

'I'll come with you,' Roderich said. Gilbert gaped at him, suddenly conscious of his hangover and his lack of dress.

'What the hell are you talking about?' He roughly ushered him in and locked the door behind him.

'When you go out drinking.' He looked distasteful. 'I want to come.'

'To be my escort?' Gilbert barked a laugh, paced his sparse concrete room and refused to look at him, holding all his words under his tongue. 'I don't need a babysitter, princess. I can take care of myself.'

'Can you?' he snapped. 'You're guarding in the prison now, aren't you? And this is how you're...dealing with it.'

'Don't talk about what you don't understand,' Gilbert snarled back. 'I have to. Just because you're Roderich Edelstein doesn't mean you know _everything_. I have to do this, or they'll shoot me, or they'll-' He snapped his mouth shut on the words _they'll go after you_. There was a huge gaping space between them that they couldn't cross after their night together. _I love you, I am so in love with you_.

'I don't care why you have to do it. I am going to go with you,' Roderich said, shaking. 'You'll come to my house when you want to drink yourself senseless and I will make sure you don't die during the attempt.'

'Get out of my house,' Gilbert shouted, turning away. Roderich stood up to protest and he whirled on him, eyes stinging. ' _Get out!_ I don't want you here, I don't need you to try to take _care_ of me, I don't want to see you ever again!'

Roderich rose, disgust and anger in every line of his expression, and stalked out. Gilbert slammed the door behind him. Someone was keening, some horrible inhuman noise, and he hurt so much. All he could see when he blinked up at the guttering lights were his baby brother's wide-open, furious eyes as he screamed those things at him, told him to get out.

Wasn't that just like him? Ruining every good thing he'd ever had. It was as much as he deserved.

0o0o0o

Two nights later, he walked to the square and knocked on the door, loathing himself. Roderich appeared, pulling his overlarge coat around himself. They didn't speak.

People said he looked like an angel. He felt a lot less than human. He wished he was an angel. He wished he could ask Francis to paint him a pair of eagle wings in bloody reds and sunset purples, wished Roderich could see him like that. He wished Roderich would just _look_ at him, when he accompanied him to the bars. It made him feel even worse. He wished he would stop falling in love with brilliance or with tragedies or with both.

Roderich touched his neck and Gilbert turned towards him like a compass needle to North. _Look at me, talk to me, tell me what to do, tell me what we are_.

'It's time to go home,' he said quietly. Gilbert let him take his hand and then let go in the street, trusting he'd follow like the trained dog he was. He didn't remember anything after that.

0o0o0o

In the morning, Gilbert woke up in a soft bed for once. There were no impossible artists with sharp words and spray paint cans here, no friends full of pain he couldn't fix, no brothers to take care of and be cared for by, only the musician sitting at the edge of the bed. For once, the world was quiet, but his head didn't hurt any less. He must be in Roderich's bed.

He shifted, almost leaning forward before he reconsidered. When he spoke, it was like everything in Gilbert could breathe again.

'I thought you were...'

'Dead?' Everything in him hurt. Gilbert gave his best worst smile and tasted blood. 'Sometimes I wish that I was dead.'

'I won't let you die.'

He was now being ruled by this prissy aristocrat, apparently. Gilbert laughed and tried to get up. Roderich pushed him back down, and Gilbert blinked up at him.

'I will not allow you to die,' he repeated.

'I'm not holding my breath.' Gilbert reached up and touched his sharp collarbone, fascinated. His eyes shone. 'You're crying.'

'Be quiet.'

Gilbert grabbed his arm. He was stronger than he was even as the wreck he had become.

'Roderich,' he insisted, the name heavy in his mouth, making him _want_ , making him lonely and safe and everything else. 'Come here.'

Roderich crumpled against him, curling up, legs swung onto the bed.

'Gilbert,' he said. His voice broke. 'You selfish, blind fool.'

'Tell me something new.' He wanted him, wanted so much with him in his arms. Roderich turned his face away, trying to hide his tears, and Gilbert gripped his chin and turned it towards him, wiping them away. 'Or- or I'll tell you something I've never said. I'm sorry.'

That stopped him. Gilbert was too tired and guilty to even try to save himself now. He would give himself up for Roderich to save him, give him penance and peace.

'Gilbert,' he rasped.

'I'm a turncoat,' he reminded him. 'I'm a guard. I'm a bad brother,' he added, tears prickling in his eyes. 'Why are you still with me, princess? I thought I could have scared you off by now.'

'I told you. I'm in love with you.' He blinked back tears. 'You fool.'

Gilbert tipped his head back to rest against the headboard and laughed, too exhausted to move.

'You should hate me.' He traced patterns on the back of his neck, where his hair curled away from the skin. 'Of all the people to love, princess, it had to be me?'

'I can't help loving you.' He turned so Gilbert's hand cupped his face. 'Even if you're coarse and arrogant.'

'Nothing wrong with that.' He kissed his hair. Time was slow here, for them. 'Thank you for bringing me home. Even though you shouldn't have.'

'I know.' A ghost of a smile, as he reached up to brush along the lines of his face. 'My darling Gilbert, I can't help falling in love with you.'

His throat was thick. _Darling_ , the word seemed to sink into his bones and stay there.

'I am so in love with you, songbird.' He guided him closer, heated and full of humming _devotion_ , the only thing he had, the only thing he could give. If Roderich wanted it, he'd give his life to him. 'I should never have kissed you, though. You know that.'

'I do,' he admitted. He moved closer so their foreheads touched, poised and gentle in the half-darkness. 'Do it again?'

'Anything you want.' Another request lingered on his tongue, and he shook his head at himself and his own soft feelings. He spoke it, regardless, because he was a hopeless hoping guard and there was nothing worthwhile in this concrete world except Roderich anymore. Because this would be washed away in the harsher lights of morning. 'Call me- call me that again, go on…'

'Darling,' he breathed, and they lost themselves again.

0o0o0o

 _Roaring_ was a good word for this kind of night, when the world couldn't touch them and all that existed was the pounding music and their bodies in the dark. Gilbert turned his face up towards the flashing lights and let the music thump through his bones, reached forward and slid his hands into dark, silky hair. When Roderich kissed him he felt the cold frames of his glasses press into their faces. The music wrapped around them and their swaying bodies, this private, open dance in the heart of the city. The clubs like this, like they had in the West, were hard to find and harder to get into, but he'd wanted to show him better music for once. Like this, he could forget about the prison.

He could still taste the paint in the back of his throat. He didn't know why he'd done it, back to his old ways, but he'd taken up the paint cans and done his worst in the backstreets, barely a few blocks from the prison. _Fuck_ , it had been stupid and reckless in the worst of ways, and he'd gone and signed it too, _Eagle_ , his old name. It had felt so good. His head was light with it.

'Thank you,' Roderich murmured, hoarse and adoring, 'for showing me this.'

'Only the best for you, princess,' Gilbert whispered back.

'Aren't you afraid someone will find us?'

'They won't. Or if they do, I'll take care of you. Haven't I been?' He nudged his glass closer. 'Still too shy to drink?'

'You can barely take care of yourself.' In the pause, he kissed his nape and Gilbert grinned. 'Arrogant fool.'

'I'm not dead yet, princess.'

'A miracle,' he said dryly.

' _Really_. I'm sure Ivan's got bigger problems than some music club with a pretty musician and his worst guard.'

'Why do you call him Ivan?' Roderich asked. Gilbet paused, reluctant to dip back into memory.

'Because that's how I knew him. He wasn't always Stasi. It was- it was before all of this, where he was Red Army cannon fodder and I was still with the resistance.' He trailed off. He hadn't thought of the _before_ in too long.

'What happened?'

'I helped him,' Gilbert said. 'To break someone out of prison. But I fucked something up, or there were too many guards, or a million other things because when has Berlin ever made sense?- and he got caught.'

Silence. Gilbert swirled his glass, no longer interested in the cheap beer.

'He joined them,' he said. It felt too quiet even though the music still curled around them. 'Filthy traitors, both of us, aren't we?' He stood up, tasting blood from where he'd bitten through his cheek as the world swam. He heard Roderich begin a question as he pushed through the crowd towards the jukebox, but the music swept it away.

'Listen,' he said, collapsing back into the chairs. He took Roderich's hand, thumbing across where he used to wear his ring. This space, this time together would be forgotten, and Roderich would be better without the memories.

The song he'd put on the jukebox started and Roderich turned to it like it was sunlight, _brilliant_. Gilbert wanted to show him the orchestras, the city full of art and music as it had been before the wars, a city he only knew in whispers and fluttering stories. A city that, some time in the future, could happen again.

' _Wise men say, only fools rush in_...'

Roderich would never be so bold in daylight, or even behind the blackout curtains of Gilbert's room, but his skin was warm from drink and there would be no such thing as memory here, just the rush of the present and their fatal hearts and happiness, and so he tugged Gilbert forward again, and there was warmth and the movement of their hands and mouths and hearts like a perfect waltz-

They were broken apart by the scream. Gilbert reacted without thinking, adrenaline making him a soldier all over again. He shoved them both back against the wall, head swiveling, trying to make out if there were bullets or gas among the smoke and light. Life became snapshots of faces, mouths stretched open like melting wax.

He did not see the men moving, but they were suddenly there, in their uniforms, pulling people from the ground. Gilbert knew what kinds of people they'd come for.

'You have to leave right now,' he hissed to Roderich, the ache of knowing this was _all his fault_ straining against his ribs. He mouthed at his aristocrat's neck and the curve of his jaw near his ear, wondering when he would be able to touch him again. Roderich made a choking sound and kissed him, tasting like salt.

'Not without you,' he said. He didn't understand what was at stake, didn't understand just how much he was worth to him.

'Don't argue,' Gilbert said roughly, and pulled away, cold all over. 'Go. I'll be right behind you.'

That- that was a lie and they both knew it.

'Go!' Gilbert snarled, and Roderich stumbled away, shocked by the tone, fear in his eyes and Gilbert had never hated himself more. But it would all be worth it if he survived tonight. They both held their gaze for a heartbeat before he was gone, pushing towards the exit.

When the gloved hands came down on his shoulders, Gilbert let them take him against his instincts. He just wanted this to be over.

'Imagine finding you here,' the man said. He had a heavy grip that dug into the new bruises on his neck.

'Go to hell,' Gilbert said through the taste of blood. 'Like you haven't been to a club before.'

'Who cares about a raid on some club?' he asked, voice dripping amusement. 'I didn't expect you to be one of those artists.'

'I'm not a-' Gilbert stopped, horror welling inside of him. They couldn't have known the painting was him, not unless- _unless Ivan had seen them,_ Ivan who he'd known when his resistance name was his pride and joy. 'You're fucking _stupid_ if you think I'm an artist,' he snapped again, praying, hoping, clutching the cross still in his pocket.

'Is that right?' The grip tightened, the thumb brushing in a sick irony over where his tattoo tingled. ' _Eagle?'_

Gilbert went cold all over. His heart was thudding off-pace, stuttering in his thoughts. 'No,' he rasped, but it was hopeless. _His fault, it was his fault_.

'I found one trying to run,' a faraway voice said. Gilbert tensed. He recognized that voice. That man was his private, back at the Wall. 'Says his name is Edelstein or something.'

'Edelstein? Isn't that _his_ little songbird?' the man holding Gilbert asked.

No, no, _no_ -

'Let him go!' Gilbert screamed, the beast of his heart roaring in pain, twisting in the man's grip, fighting to get to him, to his musician, who was hanging there limply in the man's arms, glasses askew. 'No, he didn't do anything, he's _nothing_ to you, let him go! _I'm the one you want!_ '

'But he's _everything_ to you, our dear eagle,' his private whispered in his ear, and all Gilbert saw was Roderich raising his head and looking at him with the saddest kind of smile, a silent apology, before the world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :: Trying to find the shades of evening where blue becomes purple becomes black


	9. Chapter Nine

Roderich didn't know why they bothered putting him in the cuffs to drag him back through the streets to the prison. It would be pointless to try to fight, surrounded by all the guards, and he felt hopeless and heavy and drained. The sight of Gilbert screaming like a caged animal flashed before his eyes again. That was worse than any threat, any gun pressed cold into his ribs. He chanced trying to raise his head, and caught the flickering of the dawn through the far skyline. It made him think of their night by the opera house.

'Keep moving,' the guard barked. Roderich was almost glad to have a reason to look away.

They marched him into the steel and concrete brick building and left him to think with a parting sneer. Roderich eased himself down on the steel bed. He wanted to sleep, not because he was tired, though he was. Because if he slept, this new nightmare would be chased back for a few hours, and he might dream of eagle tattoos and coppery eyes and too much of all the wrong loves. It seemed a cruel joke on the part of whatever god was listening to the harsh song of Berlin to have Gilbert be one of his jailers. So close and yet so far, just like always.

He looked out down the hall, but the guards who had brought him in were gone. The only other person he could see was a shorter man across the hall with two rifles on his back. He turned abruptly, like he'd felt Roderich's scrutiny, and stalked towards him. He paused outside his cell, his hands briefly tightening into fists by his sides, jade eyes flashing wide for half a second, so briefly Roderich was nearly sure he'd imagined it. He tried not to meet his eyes. He didn't need a guard to have a grudge against him.

'What do you need?' he snapped.

'To be freed,' Roderich said dryly, and immediately regretted his words. The guard stared at him for a moment, and he made the mistake of catching his gaze again. His brows were furrowed, and Roderich wondered if the man knew him, somehow. Had news of his arrest traveled so far already?

'I can't do it.' He paused, pressing his lips together. He looked genuinely regretful for a second. 'I'm sorry.'

He turned around and swept back to his bench a few feet away. After a moment, he fluidly swung one of his rifles off his back and began cleaning it, even though it already looked spotless.

'What are the charges against me?' Roderich called. The man stopped, and with a low growl of annoyance, put the gun away again.

'You're saying you don't know?'

'From what I've seen, truth isn't valued quite as highly here.'

The man's hand twitched towards the radio at his waist, and then he lowered it. 'You should be careful of what you say.'

'Someone told you that you could get five years for a joke,' Roderich said. He regretted that for a different reason. Every thought of Gilbert was still raw and bright as blood inside. How was it that he had cursed the man while he was close and now wanted nothing but his heat and sharp edges? He pushed it away for now. 'However, now that I'm here…' He let it trail away.

'Fine. I'll tell you.' He shifted his bench closer. 'They don't tell me everything, either. This is as much as I know.'

'Why not?'

'I'm not a guard,' he said shortly. 'I'm hired. And you are a traitor to the regime, a collaborator with a resistance unit, well as…' He hesitated, then. 'Homosexual.'

'I have a fiancé,' was all Roderich would allow himself to say. 'Her name is Elizabeta.' And she was so much gentler yet stronger than he'd ever known. He missed her, and he missed Gilbert in a harsher, hungrier way, and in this grey concrete silence both were so far away.

'Elizabeta,' the man repeated. Roderich thought he heard a note of familiarity there, but he couldn't tell if he had only been hoping for it or not. He knew it would be worse than useless to mention Gilbert. Everyone in the building would be able to hear the hate and love and fear that tangled around that name.

'What have they sentenced me to?'

The man looked away. Roderich understood, he had known the risks, but the realization that Gilbert wouldn't be with him ever again made his chest fill up with a dark and hopeless emptiness. They'd made so many mistakes with each other when the only thing that mattered was trying to keep each other safe. They'd failed in that, utterly.

'I'm sorry,' the man said again. His hand jerked forward again, like he had almost meant to reach out and touch him, but corrected it. Roderich was too tired to think about it.

'It was nice to speak to you,' he said, and turned to curl up on his steel bed and hurt. He heard the bench be pulled away again, out of sight of his cell, leaving him with the illusion of solitude.

He dreamed of Gilbert unlocking the doors of the cell and taking his hand, walking with him out of the prison into the sunlight of Austria, far away from here. Laughing and cooing and calling him _princess_ , body atop his in the grass, the wind in their hair and the sun on their skin. Gilbert, his darling, terrible, broken Gilbert would taste like the wind and steel he was made of instead of souring alcohol.

He woke up with a gasp, silent stubborn tears streaking down his face. He wiped them away with the heel of his hand, furious and disgusted with himself. Prison was no place for those thoughts. There would be no more saving each other, if they ever had before.

He waited until morning came, alone and still in the darkness. The pale sunlight spilling through the high barred window hurt his eyes, but he stared into it and tried to remember the exact pearly blue it was for a day without sky. He was sure that in this prison, there would be many.

The man he'd spoken with came back, and roughly rattled the bars to get his attention. Roderich sat upright, blinking, startled by the abrupt change in attitude from last night until he spotted the guards behind him.

'Roderich Edelstein, you're wanted for interrogation.' His voice tilted oddly on his name. He twisted a key and the door scraped open squealing. This time, they didn't speak, and Roderich didn't look at the three guards standing behind him.

Roderich was sore all over and the gun barrel dug into his back as the three escorted him away, but he would not fail or falter. He held his head higher and walked to the unknown. As the three guards opened the doors of the interrogation room for the first time, Roderich thought of Gilbert's singing, how it was an oddly beautiful thing in the most hopeless places. It had sunk into him, bone deep, but he reached inside and let it go like a black-winged songbird, exhaling the unknowing wanting of those times. There would be no more dreaming, no more hoping.

The doors swung shut behind him.

0o0o0o

Gilbert woke up in stages, and Roderich drifted between them, always in the corner of his eye, musician's hands brushing down his side where the worst scars were or twined with his. He felt the heat of his body and the silk of his hair and once, only once, he heard his voice, intense and shattered all over inside, repeating his name like a plead and command and Gilbert would give it, give himself, if he could only find him.

He woke up with his mouth cotton dry, staring at a ceiling. He couldn't move, but it was only his own fault. His body was heavy and leaden with loss. The room buzzed emptily. He was alone in an empty holding cell, the door wide open. The message was clear. The Stasi's proceedings were about as subtle as a concrete wall.

He thought that after Ludwig, he'd have gotten used to the act of tearing out his own heart and stitching together the rest of himself, all his worst edges and sharpest smiles, into something that could survive here. Somehow he wasn't. _Roderich_ , he thought blurrily, _princess, you've wrecked me_.

Loving was only good for the dead and dying. Gilbert knew that. He had always known loving Roderich Edelstein would kill him and he did not regret a single moment of it. He only wished it would have lasted a little bit longer, he only wished it had been him led away in chains, instead of laying here alone.

He struggled up and finally spotted the photos left on the table for him. He stopped for a moment to shuffle through them. Antonio had taught him enough about photography to appreciate the artistry of the shots. His graffiti looked better than ever. He decided to take one of the photos that showed off his signature best and slipped it into his pocket where it rustled against the cross necklace. He was surprised they hadn't taken it. After how much they'd taken, after how much they could ruin and hurt, they decided to leave him with this?

He slipped it over his neck, tucking the cross underneath his threadbare shirt. It rested over his heart. It was worse than not thinking of Roderich being gone at all.

A senior guard caught him as soon as he came out. He forced down any emotion, keeping his face neutral.

'Beilschmidt, they want you down in the east wing. Vargas is being difficult.'

'Who?' Gilbert asked blankly.

'The 'Oriole' agent. At the bar. His file suggests that a resistance got to him, and he attempted to leave.' The man's lip curled.

 _Good man_. Gilbert straightened his shoulders and forced down a sneer. He wanted to tear this prison to the bricks and mortar with his bare hands. 'Yes, sir.'

When he reached the east wing he saw, to his shock, Romano from the bar huddling into himself, arms wrapped around his knees, hair a filthy mess. When he saw him, his eyes brimmed with hatred.

'I bet you're glad,' he spat. 'You've moved up in the world. How many people did you sell out so you could move from the Wall to another prison?'

'They sent me here,' Gilbert said shortly. Romano laughed, high and wild.

'I could say the same.' He rested his chin on his crossed wrists, turning his face away. 'It's my fault. This is all my fault.'

'They said you defied the Stasi.' Gilbert glanced back, worried about other guards. 'That a resistance group helped you. Was it...was it Antonio's?'

It was pointless to go chasing after news of someone who should have killed him. But Romano's face twisted up in such pain and love and fear that Gilbert could read him like a mirror, and feel his want and need of Roderich beating the same tattoo into his chest. The beat of guard's boots drew closer, and Romano nodded desperately.

'Good,' Gilbert said, which was all he could do. His breath caught thinking of his best friends. If they were even his friends anymore, which he doubted and didn't blame them for.

When the new guards arrived, Gilbert was already leading the prisoner down the hall. He left him in front of the interrogation room, and caught only the backwards gleaming of hazel as farewell. He didn't see Romano again, and had to hope that he was freed and not burned out of history. All that existed was hope, and Gilbert would have laughed at the irony once.

The days blurred. He found out the west wing key on his ring didn't work, and for the same reason, knew Roderich was there. He'd watch the little Swiss gunman disappear there every day, every particle of him urging to be closer. He couldn't be.

He went drinking instead. He should have had his best friends beside him. Gilbert couldn't remember how many times they'd been on a liquid night like this, knuckles and faces red, laughing over their latest escapade. He should have his baby brother to show the world to. He should have his Roderich here, to tease and be teased, pushing and challenging and alight. He wanted them all so much, and the loss of them left him empty. Without them, who was he?

More than once, with no reason to stop and no aristocrat beside him, he brought himself up to that point where the snow was warm and the air was thick and the stars gleamed like music, where he thought about letting go and how Berlin must look from ten miles up. Like a heart with a split right down the middle, like a chest of scars and not enough of knowing when to stop loving something. The cross on his chest burned too cold for comfort that night, and against all his better instincts he hauled himself back up out of the snow and stumbled home to dream of Roderich. He'd promised to save him and they'd ended up like this. _Princess, I don't blame you for any of this_.

 _This is all my fault_ , he thought, mouth pulling into a bitter smile, tracing the lines of his baby brother's face on the photo on his nightstand. His bed was still rumpled and smelled like Roderich. He closed his eyes, turned the picture face down again, and wished everything could be different.

The next day, he followed Zwingli into the west wing. He frowned at him.

'You shouldn't be here.'

He didn't bother answering. He was beyond anything except needing to see Roderich again, just to confirm he was alive. He had to be alive. The world would have stopped turning if he'd gone.

Gilbert broke away from him as soon as they entered the wing and searched the hallways, nearly running through endless steel and concrete until he heard his voice. He shoved through a door and met his Roderich's dark eyes, heavily shadowed, face hollowed and greying, but all of that fell away in the space of a heartbeat. He clutched the bars of his cell and Gilbert dropped to his knees in front of him, cradling his starved-thin hands in his, everything aching to be closer, closer, closer.

'Roderich,' he whispered, pleading. ' _Roderich_ , songbird, liebling, oh, God.'

'Gilbert,' he gasped. His skin was hot with fever, eyes glassy. He looked starved, he looked _ruined_ , and Gilbert kissed his trembling hands.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Fuck, this was all my fault. What have they done to you?'

He smiled crookedly, but it broke. 'It doesn't matter.'

It did, but they were helpless to fix any of their torn-up edges in this city. Nothing mattered except the breathless seconds and the way they couldn't touch properly. Gilbert would have given the world to have Roderich shouting that he hated him, out of these concrete walls and free, than here in the quiet harsh light where they could only hold on.

He heard the scrape of the door too late and whirled to face whoever it was, gun already in his hands. Zwingli looked back at him, eyes wide and furious. Gilbert felt like snarling back at him, running alight with the gunpowder blood of this city to defend something finally worth fighting for.

'What are you doing?' Zwingli hissed, hand jumping to his rifle. Gilbert didn't answer. He had no reason to give this man any hint of who they were to each other.

'Gilbert,' Roderich whispered between them. Gilbert glanced away from the man to look at his ravaged face.

'Do you know him?'

'He's hired. He's not one of them.' Roderich laid a hand against his back, right over his tattoo, and Gilbert wanted to sink to his knees for him right then, a testament to how much Roderich had torn the war out of him and replaced it with devotion. He tightened his grip on his gun and forced himself to stay back. He wouldn't hurt them both with a gentle touch.

'He's as good as a Red.' Even worse, if he had the choice not to and chose the Stasi regardless.

'I know,' Roderich said, and across the hall Zwingli nearly flinched. There was no pleading in his eyes, only a stillness the worst depths of the East couldn't take from him, a deep and drowning purple. Gilbert would let himself sink into that shade.

He twisted around and Roderich reached for him, both of them with the iron bars digging into their skin. Gilbert heard a painful, breaking noise caught in the back of his throat, like a song that couldn't exist in this place. There was a bruise on Roderich's cheek. Everything had been stripped away from them both, leaving only their split-open and scarred hearts.

'I promised,' Gilbert whispered, of all their moments before, where they'd taken even their hunted East lives for granted, trying to impress his soldier's devotion into his skin. He leaned his forehead against the bars, the feverish heat of Roderich's skin half a breath away, drinking in the dying sunset of his eyes. 'I promised.'

He tore himself away and caught Zwingli's furious gaze instead. If he told the colonel of this, the best Gilbert could hope for would be a cell close to Roderich. But for some reason, he knew he wouldn't.

He pushed past him as he left that echoing, painful hallway and didn't look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :: Pushing yourself back up by the knuckles


	10. Chapter Ten

Gilbert knew he couldn't go back to the west wing. He felt Zwingli's gaze on him as he paced the prison, drifting between dreams, and sometimes he caught his narrowed jade eyes. There was wariness there, and a silent dark anger. Gilbert couldn't find it in himself to care. Intention meant a lot less than action, and the gunman would never act against him.

One night, the guard who used to be his private dragged a boy down the hall to the interrogation room, eyes half-closed and gleaming gold. He looked a lot like Romano, if Romano was an artist still shining with the marks and paint of the West. He was from across the Wall, it was written across him like so many fingerprints, and everyone slowed to watch as he was carried off. It felt _wrong_ to have him here. If the West wasn't safe, then Ludwig might not be safe anymore. Gilbert clutched the cross in his pocket and promised he'd never see his baby brother die in the East like he would, no matter what it would take. Promises for impossible things, that was all Gilbert Beilschmidt was worth anymore.

When the West artist was gone, Gilbert abruptly turned to the nearest guard, grabbing their arm hard enough to bruise.

'What's his name?' he demanded. 'When did they bring him in and why?'

'He's Feliciano Vargas,' he said, trying to pull away. Gilbert loosened his grip somewhat. 'He's only been around for a few days- he's here because one of the agents acted out.'

Gilbert had a good idea of which agent it was. He wasn't really so different from Romano after all. Their other halves were the only things that could hurt them here.

But his Ludwig was in the West, safe and away from the Stasi and the grey and Gilbert, his firebrand, turncoat big brother. If Gilbert hadn't loved a musician, he would have been safe, too.

0o0o0o

It was two days later that Gilbert started hearing his baby brother's name whispered throughout the hallways. He could feel the weight of their last name pressing down on him. He should have told them it wouldn't matter- that he had made sure Ludwig hated him, had dug his bloodied claws into the only softness left in his perfect brother and ripped it out of him. To keep him safe.

 _I never want to see you again_ , he'd snarled, forcing himself to look into those bright blue eyes, like the sky, and _break_ him like he should never be broken, break him like only Gilbert could. Break him because if he'd told him the truth, _there will be a Wall and a split and they will kill me for it, and if you stay they will kill you too-_ Ludwig would have picked up his gun and fought with him. He never knew which fights weren't his to lose. Thrown his secret collection of art from under his floorboards on their table, art of other men, beautiful things, and called him things that should never have been said, called him _disgusting_ , called him _not mine, won't have a brother like you_ -

Gilbert closed his eyes and remembered the fur of their dogs, soft and short and patterned like coffee and cream and chocolate. He didn't know where they were anymore, but in the beginning they'd kept coming back to the house after he'd turned them out. They didn't know how to do anything else. It was lucky the Wall stopped Ludwig from doing the same.

He tasted copper again, pushed himself up from the wall, and returned to his post. He couldn't take care of them. He hadn't been able to take care of Ludwig, but he was safe now. He hadn't taken care of Roderich, either, but he would save him. He would save him.

He found his former private a week later in a bar, wearing a higher insignia. Moving up in the prison. When he settled in beside him, the conversation ended abruptly, leaving only the amber lights through their beer bottles and the glowing red embers of their cigarettes. Gilbert lit his own off his private's and raised it in a slow, mocking salute. He was already too drunk to care.

'I've been hearing a lot of my baby brother's name around our place,' he said, leaning forward. 'Anybody care to tell me why?'

''Course we can,' his private said after a moment of silence. His grey eyes shimmered in the red glow. 'The artist we picked up- you saw him?' Gilbert jerked his head in agreement. _Feliciano Vargas_.

'What, Ludwig's guards are bullying you into giving him back to the West where he belongs?' He took a drag on his cigarette. It didn't taste the same when he wasn't kissing Roderich. He missed how he tasted, like old sun and autumn.

His private grinned, teeth gleaming in the dark.

'Your brother and that artist are _lovers_ ,' he crooned, grey eyes shining like the steel of this city. 'Did you know he was _like_ _that_ , Gilbert? I heard you can get five years for it.'

Gilbert picked up the nearest bottle, beyond caring about who it belonged to, and drained the dregs. Ludwig. God, his perfect baby brother, who's only flaw was falling in love with the worst people at the worst time.

'I knew,' he said, licking the copper sting of alcohol off his bared teeth, breathing through the roiling urge to tear these men to shreds with his bare hands. 'Chased him out of the house for it.' _I did it to save him_.

'One of the higher-ups is wondering how far he'll go for his little artist,' another man commented. Gilbert's stomach twisted.

'You think he loves him?' He made himself laugh, the sound high and cracking. 'My brother doesn't love anything but the country.'

'Vargas is fucking infatuated with him, though.' His private leaned forward, the bottle in his fist dripping amber. 'I remember- Klaus, we went in and he had a painting of him done.'

'Did he?' Gilbert tightened his grip on the empty bottle, more grimacing than smiling. His pulse hammered in his throat, and he tasted blood.

'Disgusting. The whole thing is disgusting,' another man called, and the guards laughed and clapped each other on the back, a single mass of crooked uniforms and amber bottles and gleaming sharp teeth. The only disgusting things were them, here, hissing these things at hints of beautiful things, things better than they would ever know. In the wavering light, the liquor looked like blood- looked like melted gold- dripping off their teeth, drinking all those most precious things for humans alive.

Gilbert drank gold with them until he could afford to leave, and then wandered the city with a terrible scream still trapped below his tongue, drinking until the Wall itself blurred into the dawn.

He lay across a bench as the stars faded, pressing Roderich's cross to his lips, wishing and hoping against hope that his brother was cruel enough to leave his artist to the Stasi, leave downed birds for the dead like Gilbert had tried to convince him to do so many times when he was younger. He wouldn't be. He and Gilbert only knew love as sacrifice.

Two days later, he heard those men bragging amongst themselves, cooing that _he'll be ours_. Their eyes dragged across Gilbert's shoulders, down the scars on his chest. Wall scars. Gilbert knew they weren't really talking about Ludwig. They wanted _him_ , they wanted to break him. He lifted his chin and kept walking. They'd break him, of course, but for now, for these last few days, he chose to be Roderich's instead.

The night he heard the whispers of a prisoner exchange, he was almost impressed. It was all very neat and professional, nearly perfect, just as he would have expected from his brother.

 _Prisoner exchange_ , he thought, flipping his gun through his hands, still half drunk from the latest night, too tired of aching for better. _Exchange_ \- it wavered like the light through amber bottles and suddenly he connected it, he _knew_ , he knew how to save his musician, if he couldn't save anyone else.

He ran through the corridors of the prison until he found Zwingli, cleaning his rifles. He stopped in front of him and held out a hand.

'I need your keys.'

'Why should I give them to you?' he asked, eyes narrowing.

Gilbert was _tired_. Of the Stasi, of hurting and being hurt, of grey and silence and the knowledge that people who deserved better were trapped. His Roderich was in there, alone, with every guard in the prison trying to wrench every beautiful piece out of him when his only crime was getting stained with Gilbert's paint and blood. Finally, _finally_ Gilbert had a way to fulfill his promise, and if this man stood in the way, he would regret it.

He pulled out his gun and leveled it at the centre of his forehead. Breathing slow, heart humming. Ready to exhale.

'Give me your keys,' he repeated, voice cold and hard. A commander's voice, just like his baby brother. 'I am going to save Roderich.'

There was a flash of something in Zwingli's eyes at that, something stronger even than the cold anger at the gun. Something twisted further inside of Gilbert, tight enough that it might break him.

He slid the keys off his belt, slow and deliberate, hands steady as a sniper's. When Gilbert reached for them, Zwingli grabbed his hand, gripping tight enough to bruise. The teeth of the keys cut into their palms.

'Save him,' he whispered, voice barely shaking with emotion. Gilbert's gun fell away to his side. 'Promise you'll save him.'

What was one more promise? Gilbert dragged the words out of his scratchy, smoke-rough throat.

'I promise.'

Zwingli let go, breathing harder, eyes sliding half shut. Gilbert set his own ring of keys on the table beside him, but the gunman didn't touch them. Gilbert felt like he should say something, thank him or apologize for the gun, but those words carried too much weight here.

He left him alone, holding onto the keys so tightly that they left imprints.

0o0o0o

His superiors didn't object to him handling the prisoner exchange. Gilbert assumed they thought it would hurt him- locking up his own baby brother. It would.

He was as gentle with Feliciano as he could be. Looking at him, he could tell why Ludwig loved him to the point of sacrifice. He had a gentleness, a warmth that the East felt empty of. He tried to soothe him as much as he could, murmuring empty words as he guided him to the room.

When the door to the prison opened, the American pilot stepped through, haunted and wary. Gilbert caught his brother's eyes, fierce and clearest blue, calm and perfect. He knew Ludwig, he knew him better than he knew himself.

'You're here for the prisoner exchange,' he heard himself say, still drinking in the lines of Ludwig's face, guilty and exhausted and so far beyond anything but this last hope of saving Roderich at the cost of both their lives.

He led them both to the room, wondering if the pilot knew, if Ludwig had told him more than needing to save Feliciano.

'Leave him in there with the other.' He caught his brother's gaze again, the sudden break of emotion there. They still understood each other too much, even after it all. 'I have to go get the second prisoner. Come with me.'

Without waiting, he turned on his heel and strode off to the west wing, clutching the key ring. His hands shook as he unlocked the door, and told the pilot to wait for him there.

Roderich. His frustrating, wonderful princess, his songbird. Gilbert could save him.

He sank to his knees outside his cell, and Roderich's eyes widened.

'Gilbert,' he gasped. 'What are you doing here?'

'I'm saving you, princess,' he rasped, fumbling with the lock until it clicked off, until Roderich was in his arms again, holding on, salt and copper in their mouths. Gilbert kissed his jaw and neck and mouth, worshipping, wanting, finally released. 'Just like I promised.'

'Gilbert,' he whispered, like the broken men they were. They held each other, kissed full of need and heat, crooning the music of each others' names.

'I'm sorry, sweetheart,' Gilbert said, brushing Roderich's tears away. Roderich interrupted him with another kiss, softer than either of them deserved. All of him was better than Gilbert had ever deserved.

'I love you, Gilbert,' he said.

'Aristocrat.' Gilbert wanted to say _you shouldn't_ , wanted to say _love someone better_ , wanted to say _promise you'll forget me_. But he loved him, he loved Roderich Edelstein enough to hurt, enough to sacrifice for. He loved his voice and his eyes and his pride, he loved how they clashed full of sparks and eagle feathers, two artists turned not-quite-soldiers running from themselves in this burning, glittering war city. 'I love you too, Roderich. So much, you're so important to me.'

'Darling,' he breathed against the scar over his fatal heart, hand brushing the tattoo on his back. Gilbert kissed his hair, remembering the lyrics of their song.

'You change everything,' he told him. 'God, you're so stubborn, so goddamn _beautiful_. You ruin me, it's because of you, it has always been because of you.' He kissed him until they were both breathless, their seconds slipping down, desperate and sorry for all too many mistakes, tracing his face and the wear where his ring used to be. 'For all it's worth, I'm yours.'

'I'll wait for you,' Roderich insisted, cupping his face. Gilbert leaned into his touch, a broken croon working out of his throat, utterly raw with love. He shouldn't, they shouldn't, but Gilbert _wanted_ , wanted him so much. Wanted a life with him. 'Until you're with me again.'

'How long would you wait for me, songbird?' he asked, already knowing the answer. It sunk into him like a new strain of music, winding around his stuttering war heart.

'As long as it took.' He tilted his head, eyes glimmering soft and deep as the dusk. 'I can't help falling in love with you, Gilbert.'

They swayed in a final dance in the concrete prison, a guard and a musician who loved all wrong and too fiercely and each other too much, always too much. Roderich laid his head on Gilbert's shoulder and Gilbert sang him into his better life, sang him a goodbye with the words mouthed like endearments as they walked down the hall again.

Gilbert walked with Roderich back to the holding room and rattled the door before he opened it. Ludwig and Feliciano stood there, their love so obvious between them that Gilbert could barely look. His fingers twisted one final time in Roderich's before they both let go, _goodbye, sweetheart, I love you too much_.

'Vargas,' the pilot called, voice shaking. Feliciano broke away and followed, and Roderich fell into step beside him. He looked back at Gilbert one final time.

 _I love you, darling_ , he barely whispered.

 _I promised_ , Gilbert mouthed back.

He watched until they rounded a corner and then slid the door shut, empty and lightheaded, alone with his perfect baby brother, just how it used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :: True fearlessness and being unapologetic for it


End file.
